Qimonda AG, a leading producer of advanced dynamic random access memory (DRAM), said at DRAMeXchange Compuforum seminar at Computex Taipei 2007 that it would mass produce next-generation GDDR5 memory for high-speed apps next year. This is the second time when the company aggressively promotes GDDR5 memory instead of the new-generation GDDR4.

“Owning a performance that surpasses current mainstream standards, the GDDR5, which succeeds the GDDR3, is anticipated to become the next DRAM graphic memory specification. Qimonda is set to mass produce the GDDR5 in 2008,” Robert Feurle, vice president and general manager of graphics memory business unit of Qimonda, is reported to have said during the seminar, reports DRAMeXchange.

The claim is a yet another example that Qimonda does not seem to have plans to produce GDDR4 (graphics double data rate 4), the graphics memory introduced back in August, 2006, which will be used in both high-end and performance-mainstream graphics cards this year. So far the company has only said that GDDR5 will become “the next major graphics DRAM standard after GDDR3 due to its performance increases and additional features”.

Qimonda said earlier this year that the standard had already been defined by JEDEC, therefore, memory makers have started to gear up for volume manufacturing of GDDR5 devices.

Samsung Electronics has already showcased GDDR4 chips operating at 4GHz, two times higher compared to currently available 2.0GHz GDDR3 and GDDR4 memory devices. Originally it was estimated that GDDR4 would scale to about 2.8GHz in 2007 and in 2008 the GDDR5 would kick off at 3.5GHz to reach 4GHz speeds in 2009. However, Samsung’s new chips may cause the industry to revise technology roadmap, especially keeping in mind that Samsung has been able to clock the GDDR4 at 3.20GHz about a year ago.

Mr. Feurle said that global GDDR output in 2007 will reach approximately 20 billion megabits (2.5 billion of megabytes, or 9.76 million of graphics cards with 256MB of memory). Qimonda is expected to account for roughly 1/3 (33%~40%) of the production.