Micron shared details of its 3rd generation of "10 nm-class" DRAM fabrication:
Micron's 3rd Generation 10 nm-class (1Z nm) manufacturing process for DRAM will allow the company to increase the bit density, enhance the performance, and the lower power consumption of its DRAM chips as compared to its 2nd Generation 10 nm-class (1Y nm) technology. In particular, the company says that its 16 Gb DDR4 device consumes 40% less power than two 8 Gb DDR4 DRAMs (presumably at the same clocks). Meanwhile, Micron's 16 Gb LPDDR4X ICs will bring an up to 10% power saving. Because of the higher bit density that the new 1Z nm technology provides, it will be cheaper for Micron to produce high-capacity (e.g., 16 Gb) memory chips for lower-cost, high-capacity memory sub-systems.
[...] As for mobile memory, Micron's 16 Gb LPDDR4X chips are rated for transfer rates up to 4266 MT/s. Furthermore, along with offering LPDDR4X DRAM packages with up to 16 GB (8x16Gb) of LPDDR4X for high-end smartphones, Micron will offer UFS-based multichip packages (uMCP4) that integrate NAND for storage and DRAM. The company's uMCP4 family of products aimed at mainstream handsets will include offerings ranging from 64GB+3GB to 256GB+8GB (NAND+DRAM).
Finally, a reasonable amount of RAM for smartphones. But I think we may need at least 24 GB, if not 32 GB.
Related: Xiaomi Announces Smartphones with 10 GB of RAM
Samsung Mass Producing LPDDR5 DRAM (12 Gb x 8 for 12 GB Packages)
Related Stories
Xiaomi Mi Mix 3 packs up to 10GB of RAM and a stunning 93% screen-to-body ratio
Following a tease by the company's president back in August, Chinese manufacturer Xiaomi has now officially announced its next all-screen monster handset, the Mi Mix 3.
Boasting a FHD+ AMOLED display with a stunning 93% screen-to-body ratio, the Mi Mix 3 also packs a powerful 2.8GHz Snapdragon 845 processor into its unique frame, along with the option of 6GB, 8GB or a whopping 10GB of RAM.
Those after the 10GB model will have to track down the 'Forbidden City' limited edition, which sports traditional Chinese styling, a 10W wireless Qi charger and a collectible statue.
All of the Mi Mix 3 phones will be exclusive to the Chinese market for now. The 10 GB version is priced at RMB 4,999 ($720).
Xiaomi also announced a gaming phone with up to 10 GB of RAM, the Black Shark Helo.
Also at Ars Technica and The Register.
Previously: Oppo Likely to Release the First Smartphone With 10 GB of RAM
Samsung Commences Mass Production of First Ever 12Gb LPDDR5 DRAM for Premium Handsets
After the LPDDR4X standard, Samsung is ready to take mobile computing to the next plateau, as the Korean giant has announced that mass production of the industry's first 12-gigabit (Gb) LPDDR5 mobile DRAM, a component that has been optimized for 5G and AI features for future smartphones.
Additionally, Samsung plans on mass producing 12-gigabyte (GB) LPDDR5 packages later this month, which each package combining eight of the 12Gb chips. This reveals that future premium devices will demand the best when it comes to faster, more efficient memory, and Samsung wants to be ahead of the curve in both supply and demand.
Data rate will be 5,500 MT/s, compared to 4,266 MT/s for LPDDR4X, with up to 30% less power consumption than LPDDR4X. Future LPDDR5 chips could hit 6,400 MT/s.
Samsung plans to start producing 16Gb LPDDR5 chips next year. Smartphones with 16 GB of DRAM are sure to follow.
Samsung press release. Also at AnandTech.
Previously: Samsung Announces LPDDR5 DRAM Prototype Before Specification is Finalized
Samsung Begins Mass Producing 12 GB DRAM Packages for Smartphones
Samsung Starts Mass Production of Second-Gen 16GB LPDDR5 RAM for Future Premium Smartphones
Samsung has announced that it will kick off mass production of the world's first 16GB LPDDR5 RAM package for future smartphones. Last year, the Korean giant stated that it started mass production of 12GB LPDDR5 RAM. For 2020, Samsung has taken that production dial to the next phase and claims that the new RAM packages will enable users to experience enhanced 5G and AI features ranging from graphic-rich gaming and smart photography.
According to the company, the data transfer rate for the 16GB LPDDR5 [package] is 5500Mb/s (megabits per second), making it significantly faster than the previous-generation LPDRR4X RAM package, which peaks out at 4266Mb/s. That's not the only benefit of using these chips, because compared to an 8GB LPDDR4X package, the new mobile DRAM can deliver more than 20 percent power savings while offering twice the memory capacity.
16 GB DRAM packages could also be used in single board computers and other compact systems. For example, the BCM2711 SoC used in the Raspberry Pi 4 Model B can theoretically address up to 16 GB of memory.
Samsung press release. Also at AnandTech.
Previously: Samsung Announces 8 GB DRAM Package for Mobile Devices
Samsung Announces LPDDR5 DRAM Prototype Before Specification is Finalized
Samsung Begins Mass Producing 12 GB DRAM Packages for Smartphones
Samsung Mass Producing LPDDR5 DRAM (12 Gb x 8 for 12 GB Packages)
Get Ready for Smartphones with 16 GB of RAM
SK Hynix Commences Mass Production of 18GB LPDDR5 RAM Chips for Smartphones With 6,400Mbps Speeds
Android phone makers will continue to push the limits of hardware specifications, and from the looks of it, SK Hynix will lend out more than just a helping hand. The memory manufacturer today announced that it has started mass production of 18GB LPDDR5 RAM chips for flagship smartphones, meaning that premium handsets touting more memory than notebooks will become a commonplace.
SK Hynix claims that its 18GB LPDDR5 RAM for smartphones can operate up to 6,400Mbps, making it around 20 percent faster than the previous-generation LPDDR5 RAM, which could run up to 5,500Mbps. The manufacturer also mentions that it has supplied ASUS with these DRAM chips for the upcoming ROG Phone 5 flagship. Keep in mind that during a specifications leak, the ROG Phone 5 was spotted with the aforementioned RAM count.
Why does a smartphone need 18 GB of memory instead of the previous 16 GB? From the press release:
"This product will improve the processing speed and image quality by expanding the data temporary storage space, as the capacity increases compared to the previous 16GB product," an official from the company said.
So we will see smartphones with 18 GB of RAM, or perhaps smartphones or laptops with 16/32 GB of error correction code (ECC) LPDDR5 memory.
Previously: Samsung Begins Mass Producing 12 GB DRAM Packages for Smartphones
Samsung Mass Producing LPDDR5 DRAM (12 Gb x 8 for 12 GB Packages)
Get Ready for Smartphones with 16 GB of RAM
Samsung Announces Mass Production of 16 GB LPDDR5 DRAM Packages
(Score: 2) by SomeGuy on Sunday August 18 2019, @01:44PM (11 children)
Ok, I'll get my sledge hammer ready!
Not that a single consumertard would even *know* what to do with more RAM. Bigger numbers? Time to throw everything away again and buy all new things!
Yea, yea, yea, now they can run one more Java based app. :P So wasteful.
(Score: 4, Touché) by idiot_king on Sunday August 18 2019, @02:03PM (1 child)
More RAM is just another excuse to continue to use garbage-collected languages (which invariably have poor garbage collection).
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 18 2019, @04:14PM
You know, if Java had a good garbage collector, it would have been imploded long ago...
(Score: 4, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Sunday August 18 2019, @02:50PM
More data means more space for spyware and more space for authorities to browse.
(Score: 3, Funny) by takyon on Sunday August 18 2019, @04:01PM (5 children)
640 GB ought to be a good starting point for anybody.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 18 2019, @04:51PM (4 children)
640 GB of ram oughta be enough for everyone!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by istartedi on Sunday August 18 2019, @05:44PM (3 children)
I seriously wonder now, at what point in history there was literally 640GB of RAM for everybody, ie, that much RAM on the entire planet. I'm thinking some time in the 1960s, but I really don't know...
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 4, Informative) by AthanasiusKircher on Sunday August 18 2019, @06:53PM (2 children)
I wasn't around back in the olden days of computing, but my guess would be mid-1970s. The standard form of RAM from the mid-50s through mid-70s was magnetic core RAM [wikipedia.org] (or "core"), which basically needed to be manufactured by hand. Thus, the cost even into the early 1960s was something like $1 per bit. When semiconductor RAM and DRAM were introduced by the early 1970s, their price point had come down to around 1 cent per bit, which allowed them to take over the market.
As noted in the linked article, by 1970, IBM was producing about 20 billion cores per year, or 20 billion BITS of RAM, so I don't think we were anywhere near 640 billion BYTES of RAM by that time. (Also, just thinking about the manufacturing cost -- even though core RAM was down 1 cent per bit or less by 1970, 640 GB of RAM would have required a worldwide investment of more than $50 billion even at the low 1970 prices. Assuming manufacturing that across the 1960s, it would have likely cost at least $500 billion on RAM alone. For comparison, the entire Apollo space program cost the U.S. about $25 billion. So I don't think it's feasible the globe collectively made it anywhere near 640 GB of RAM worldwide in the 1960s.)
By the mid-1970s, with semiconductor RAM becoming dominant, chip sizes rapidly shifted upwards from 1 KB initially to 32 KB, and of course then higher. Mass-produced personal computers also started entering the market by the mid-late 1970s. So, I'd guess it's probably more likely we passed the 640 GB threshold in the mid-1970s. Definitely before 1980.
(Score: 2) by istartedi on Sunday August 18 2019, @10:06PM
I had no idea we relied on core for that long. Googling around, I found that semiconductor RAM existed in the mid-60s, but looks to have been expensive and not much capacity being produced. I think you're right.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday August 19 2019, @01:15AM
I bought a "PC" in 1982 for $700. It came with 16K of RAM and I eventually expanded it to 48K for an additional $300. 640GB is 48K x ~13 million. I'd guess world capacity probably hit 640GB in the mid to late 1970s - personal computers didn't really take off until the 1980s, but there would have been millions of business computers in use by 1979.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday August 19 2019, @01:11AM (1 child)
I've tried to get enthused about making a little touch-screen cased Ras-Pi4, but... it's just not worth the effort when you can buy a complete smartphone with stupendous specs for ~$150.
At this rate, a phone can be a desktop replacement - Chromecast or WiDi or whatever your flavor to the monitor, Bluetooth to the HIDs, and the same mobile device when you're not sitting at a real screen with a real keyboard and mouse.
When I get some time, I'm thinking a good project would be a "LoJack" app for a smartphone that's wired into whatever vehicle you want to monitor - GoogleFi data SIM for real-time video/gps tracking, accelerometer/gyros to detect unexpected movement, bluetooth detection of your phone in your pocket to disarm. If you want to get clever with the finance side you can probably get a good enough new phone for under $80 to run the app on, with no monthly fee and real-time reassurance that your tracked asset (car, boat, bike) is safely not being hooned by crackheads.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday August 19 2019, @04:28AM
I've got the FLIRC case on Pi4. Now it runs at below 52°C most of the time.
Pi4 is OK for now, but I predict that the 3DSoC [soylentnews.org] concept will make its way into ARM chips and Broadcom within the next 10 years. And then we could see early 2020s HEDT performance in an ARM chip with less power consumption than Pi4. Meaning that systems that are OK like Pi4 could get turbocharged into "faster than you know what to do with" territory. Not sure how GPUs will be affected, but the industry should eventually shoot for 1 petaflops [reddit.com] in the mobile SoC form factor for standalone VR headsets (16K res, high framerate, raytracing, etc.). The rumor mill has it that ARM will make a major GPU announcement next year, and Samsung is licensing Radeon GPU technology from AMD for mobile chips [soylentnews.org], so there's going to be more focus on ARM graphics going forward.
Comparing Raspberry Pi to phones for desktop use, the 4 GB Pi4 could run you about $80 if including a micro-HDMI cable, power supply, a 32 GB microSD card, and sales tax. $95 if you throw in a FLIRC case at the non-discount price. And then shipping for Pi or case. From this article [gottabemobile.com], it seems like phones in that price range are packing 2-3 GB of RAM. Some of them have octa-core processors that may be faster if they are on a better node or newer ARM core design. IMO, it's at least in the same ballpark spec-wise, but the Pi gives you 4 USB ports, Ethernet, and dual displays. These are going to make it damn useful as a desktop. You could add a dock to the phone but that's extra cost if you're comparing. I'm thinking of getting an RTL-SDR [rtl-sdr.com] to occupy one of the Pi4's USB3 ports, but I hear it's not working properly with it yet. The other 3 are good for storage, keyboard, and mouse.
I agree that docking is where we are going in the future. Smartphones that everyone carries constantly will pack a powerful 3DSoC, act as your desktop computer when docked, with cloud or local backups for data in case you throw the thing in a ditch, losing your "desktop" computer. They will become so utterly powerful, phones will take over all current desktop roles and more than 16 GB of RAM may be desirable (all of this amount may need to be integrated directly with the 3DSoC). For the remaining desktop enthusiasts, new applications will have to be created in order to exploit/waste all the performance a desktop 3DSoC would have.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Sunday August 18 2019, @01:50PM (2 children)
What's Z as in 1Z nm? And how does it compare with 1Y nm? Both seem to be 10 nm.
And what is MT/s? Megatera per second?
(Score: 4, Informative) by takyon on Sunday August 18 2019, @04:03PM (1 child)
The 1X/1Y/1Z thing is some dumb marketing thing that lets them conceal the actual node they are making the memory on.
As you go from 1X to 1Z, the node shrinks. So maybe it was "16nm" down to "10nm" or something.
MT/s = megatransfers per second, which is the technically correct way to refer to RAM speeds.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transfer_(computing) [wikipedia.org]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Monday August 19 2019, @03:13AM
Thank you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 18 2019, @02:16PM (5 children)
does more phone or laptop ram require much more power?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 18 2019, @02:25PM (3 children)
It will be powered by mitochondria like in star wars.
(Score: 2) by sgleysti on Sunday August 18 2019, @03:01PM (1 child)
But only if you charge the phone with a hand crank / bicycle generator
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 18 2019, @04:22PM
That would be midichlorians. Mitochondria were the microscopic lifeforms responsible for the force.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 18 2019, @09:29PM
Midi-chlorians FFS!
Related: https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Midi-chlorian [fandom.com]
(Score: 1) by yuhong on Monday August 19 2019, @05:12AM
In theory the larger the die size of the DRAM, the more power it consumes. The current Micron 16Gb chips are based on 1Ynm, and the 1Znm chips should be smaller and consume less power.
(Score: 2) by Rupert Pupnick on Sunday August 18 2019, @03:31PM (1 child)
Wonder what the impact on battery performance will be. Maybe it’s still dominated by the display.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday August 18 2019, @04:14PM
It is certainly dominated by display. And newer gens of LPDDR [wikipedia.org] tend to have lower voltage and power consumption. I am surprised they are talking about a 16 GB LPDDR4X package instead of LPDDR5 though.
It's also conceivable that smart use of the chunky RAM could prevent app reloads, browser tab reloads, unnecessary network transfers, etc. which could impact the battery.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by inertnet on Sunday August 18 2019, @03:48PM (1 child)
A 1000 or maybe 2^10 times as much as "The first commercial SDRAM chip was the Samsung KM48SL2000, which had a capacity of 16 Mb" from 1992 [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Sunday August 18 2019, @06:06PM
At the bottom of this press release [samsung.com] is a nice timeline of the development of Samsung's mobile DRAM, from 256 MB in 2009 to 12 GB in 2019 (looks like 16 GB next year from Micron and/or Samsung). Speed went from 400 Mbps MDDR to 5500-6400 Mbps LPDDR5. The original iPhone had 128 MB of DRAM.
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