Qimonda is the main supplier of GDDR5 chips for AMD’s upcoming generation of graphics cards. GDDR4 is now a thing of the past and the future belongs to GDDR5, but we still have both GDDR2 and GDDR3 on the market for the lower-end cards. GDDR3 will most likely be around for some time to accompany GDDR5 as it’s fairly cheap to make and is more than enough for the current mid-range and future low-end cards. To make things even more profitable, Qimonda is planning on moving to 58nm next year.
Currently, about half of the production is at the 70nm node, and if Qimonda is to reach it’s set goal of 30% market share next year, it will have to move more parts into smaller nodes. Hynix and Samsung are the other two GDDR giants on the market, and we’re certainly they’re not going to sit idly by as Qimonda tries to steal their market shares. In any case, if Qimonda moves to 58nm the others are sure to follow, which is only good for us, the end consumers, with more and cheaper products using GDDR memory.
