Samsung to mass-produce industry’s fastest LPDDR5X DRAM in H2

South Korean tech giant Samsung Electronics Co. said on Wednesday it has developed an LPDDR5X DRAM chip that supports the industry’s fastest data processing speed, optimizing it for various artificial intelligence devices.

Samsung, the world’s largest memory chipmaker, said its latest product supports the industry’s highest performance speed of up to 10.7 gigabits per second (Gbps).

Leveraging 12-nanometer class processing technology, Samsung said it has achieved the smallest chip size among existing LPDDRs, or low-power double data rate chips, solidifying its technological leadership in the low-power DRAM market.

The new chip surpasses its previous maximum speed of 8.5Gbps achieved in October 2022.

The company said at the time that it successfully proved the performance of its LPDDR5X DRAM on Qualcomm Technologies Inc.’s Snapdragon mobile platform at a speed of 8.5 Gbps.


 
LPDDR DRAM is becoming the standard for a variety of devices because of its low-power and high-performance characteristics, expanding its use beyond smartphones to PCs, high-end computing (HPC) and servers.

MASS PRODUCTION IN THE SECOND HALF

LPDDR memory is also an important component in vehicles as a massive amount of data processing is required for autonomous driving.

Samsung’s 10.7Gbps LPDDR5X not only improves performance by more than 25% and capacity by more than 30%, compared to its previous generation models, but also expands the single package capacity of mobile DRAM up to 32 gigabytes (GB), making it optimal for mobile AI devices, it said.

The latest chip also improves power efficiency by 25%, giving mobile devices longer battery life and allowing servers to minimize energy usage when processing data.

“As demand for low-power, high-performance memory increases, LPDDR DRAM is expected to expand its applications from mobile to other areas that traditionally require higher performance and reliability such as PCs, accelerators, servers and automobiles,” said Bae Yong-cheol, executive vice president of Memory Product Planning at Samsung Electronics.

Samsung said mass production of the 10.7Gbps LPDDR5X is slated to begin in the second half, following verification with mobile application processor (AP) and mobile device providers.

ON-DEVICE AI

As the need for faster, smaller and more power-efficient memory increases across various sectors, Samsung said LPDDR DRAM is expected to be widely used in on-device or mobile AI applications.

On-device AI is an artificial intelligence technology that implements AI capabilities on the device itself, instead of going through computation in a physically separated server or cloud. AI functions can become more responsive and provide more customized AI services as smart devices can collect and compute information independently.

Analysts said while high bandwidth memory (HBM) is the main chip for cloud AI functions, LPDDR will play a central role in on-device AI.

According to market researcher Omdia, the global mobile DRAM market is forecast to grow from $12.3 billion in 2023 to $26.3 billion by 2028.

SAMSUNG TO LEAD IN THE LPDDR SEGMENT

In 2018, Samsung developed the world’s first 8 gigabit (Gb) LPDDR DRAM and then unveiled the industry’s first DPDDR5X DRAM three years later.

Last September, the company showcased its LPDDR5X products for automotive applications at IAA Mobility 2023, an international auto show, in Munich.

The company has also developed a low-power compression attached memory module (LPCAMM), a more advanced memory form factor built upon a package of multiple LPDDR chips, the industry’s first of its kind.

“Samsung will continue to innovate and deliver optimized products for the upcoming on-device AI era through close collaboration with customers,” Bae said.

Write to Jeong-Soo Hwang at hjs@hankyung.com

In-Soo Nam edited this article.