Samsung has announced its latest, third-generation HBM2 (second-gen high bandwidth memory) at GTC 2019, which it calls Flashbolt. Capable of 3.2Gb/s transfer speeds and capacity up to 16GB in a single stack, Samsung’s HBM2E memory dwarfs previous generations of HBM2 memory, and makes even the AMD Radeon VII’s quad-stack 16GB HBM2 running at 2Gb/s seem rather civilian by comparison.

Despite a relatively small footprint compared to GDDR5/6 products, there are up to eight stacks of memory (8-Hi) within every single HBM2 package, connected with through silicon vias (TSVs). AMD utilised HBM2’s tiny package size with its Vega architecture, fitting 8GB of the stuff up into the RX Vega 64 and RX Vega 56. It then followed that up in February with the launch of the Radeon VII, doubling memory capacity of its forebears to 16GB of HBM2. This was achieved with four memory stacks (4-Hi a piece).

Yet that could be achieved with just one 8-Hi Samsung Flashbolt HBM2E package. Each die is capable of a tremendous 16Gb capacity, stack up eight of ‘em and you’ve got a 16GB package managing 410 GB/s data bandwidth.