Memory manufacturer Micron has released a new roadmap that lets us peer into the future a few years, allowing us to glimpse what our systems will look like by 2028. The company's updated roadmap includes the first mention of several new products for servers, desktops, and mobile chips, including DDR5 capacities of up to 256GB per stick and the introduction of GDDR7 just in time for Nvidia's next-gen GPUs in late 2024.
Micron's new roadmap, posted by Tom's Hardware, extends to 2028 and adds two years to the previous roadmap from July. Some things have been reshuffled, and several new products have been added. One of the most interesting new additions is HBM4, previously listed as "HBM Next." Micron's current HBM3 Gen 2 runs at 1.2TB/s with 8 stacks, and when HBM4 comes out in 2026, it will offer over 1.5TB/s of bandwidth with 12 and 16 stacks. That will be the standard until 2027 when the second generation HBM4E arrives with higher capacities and over 2TB/s of bandwidth.
For gamers, the timeline for the arrival of GDDR7 has shifted a bit, with the new roadmap placing its arrival in late 2024. The company stated on the record that it would arrive in the first half of 2024, but this new map pushes that date back a few months. It will arrive with capacity and bandwidth increases compared with today's fastest GDDR6X modules, which top out at 16Gb capacity and 24Gb/s of bandwidth. The first batch of GDDR7 will increase capacity to 24Gb and run at 32Gb/s. Bandwidth and capacity will increase two years later in the second half of 2026 to hit 36Gb/s. Nvidia has stated Blackwell will arrive in 2025, but late 2024 aligns with its previous two-year cadence for new GeForce launches.
For DDR5 memory, the company has separate tracks for consumer and data center sticks, with the foundation of its plans being its new 32Gb monolithic design, which it announced yesterday. This high-capacity module will be featured on 128GB DDR5-8000 sticks extending into 2026 for desktop users. In the meantime, it's also working on Multiplexer Combined Ranks (MCRDIMM) products for servers at 8,000 MT/s speeds. The pinnacle of this design will be 256GB sticks running at 12800Mb/s, arriving in late 2025.
On the mobile front, Micron will adopt the CAMM standard introduced by Dell in late 2024. Micron's focus appears to be on increasing capacity rather than bandwidth, as it says it will use 8,533Mb/s sticks through 2026. The first generation design will offer between 16GB and 128GB per-stick, with capacity increasing to 192GB per module and beyond in the latter half of 2026.
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