Dell defends its controversial new laptop memory
If you were triggered over word that Dell is pushing a proprietary memory standard, take a chill pill. Dell's new memory design isn't really proprietary and may actually lead to benefits for performance laptops.
The controversy kicked up last week when images of Dell's new CAMM, or Compression Attached Memory Module, leaked out. This immediately lead tech sites to declare that Dell was taking a path to "lock out user upgrades" and warning laptop users who like to upgrade their memory that they were "out of luck."
In an interview with PCWorld, however, both the person who designed and patented the CAMM standard, as well as the product manager of the first Dell Precision laptop to feature it, assured us the intent of the new memory module standard is to head-off looming bandwidth ceilings in the current SO-DIMM designs. Dell's CAMM, in fact, could increase performance, improve reliability, aid user upgrades, and eventually lower costs too, they said.
[...] [Dell's Tom] Schnell said that Dell isn't making the modules and has worked with memory companies as well as Intel on this. In the future, a person with a CAMM-equipped laptop will be able to buy RAM from any third party and install it in the laptop. Yes, initially, Dell will likely be the only place to get CAMM upgrades, but that should change as the standard scales up and is adopted by other PC makers. The new memory modules are also built using commodity DRAMs just like conventional SO-DIMMs.
[...] So why do we need CAMM anyway? Dell's Schnell said that SO-DIMM, or Small Outline Dual Inline Memory Module, is headed for a glass ceiling within a generation of design. SO-DIMMs, which were first introduced almost 25 years ago, haven't changed much in all that time besides moving to newer and faster DRAM methods.
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CAMM = Compression Attached Memory Module
CAMM to Usurp SO-DIMM Laptop Memory Form Factor Says JEDEC Member
So, farewell, SO-DIMM. After a quarter century of service in laptop, all-in-ones and other compact designs, it looks like the end of the road for SO-DIMM is in sight. JEDEC committee member and Dell Senior Distinguished Engineer, Tom Schnell, told PC World that the new 'CAMM Common Spec' will be the next RAM standard for laptops. There already seems to have been a lot of progress in the background, with the v0.5 spec already approved by 20 or so companies in the task group, and JEDEC expected to finalize the v1.0 spec in the second half of this year.
[...] The new information from PC World editor Gordon Ung's chat with Tom Schnell helps us weigh up some of the pros and cons of CAMM, and point to some ways it has progressed from Dell's pre-JEDEC-approved spec. Apparently, as well as improved density (more RAM capacity in a smaller space), CAMM is amenable to "scaling to ever higher clock speeds." Specifically, the new information indicates that the DDR5-6400 'brick wall' for SO-DIMMs will be shrugged off by CAMMs.
When CAMM reaches devices, there are a couple of tech advances which could help spur its adoption. We mentioned the faster DDR5 speeds above, but it is thought that CAMM could really take off when DDR6 arrives. Another appealing variation might be for adding LPDDR(6) memory to laptops. Traditionally LPDDR memory is soldered, so the new spring contact fitting modules might mean much better upgradability for the thinnest and lightest devices which tend to use LPDDR memory.
Previously: Dell Defends its Controversial New Laptop Memory (CAMM)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 27 2022, @05:35PM (1 child)
Rambus called, they want to make sure you haven't forgotten what THEY did
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 27 2022, @07:05PM
Rambus - Intentionally withdrew from the standard process so they did not need to offer FRAND terms, had hidden torpedo patents nobody knew about till years later.
Dell - Actively seeking to make this a standard where they are bound by FRAND terms, everyone know they hold all the patents
How do you see these as similar?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Revek on Wednesday April 27 2022, @06:02PM (3 children)
Every now and then dell decides to try to take the market over and they seem to try it with ram.
This page was generated by a Swarm of Roaming Elephants
(Score: 3, Interesting) by RS3 on Wednesday April 27 2022, @07:19PM (2 children)
IIRC, Rambus is what RDRAM was called, but in fact is a company.
Again, IIRC, it was mostly Intel that made motherboards with RDRAM / RIMM slots?
And many (most?) Dell computers are just Intel motherboards, built / customized to Dell specs. I have 1 older Dell with RDRAM and RAM speed tests showed it was truly impressive for its time period.
I mostly just remember lawsuits, dragging down technology development / advancement, and other technologies being enhanced such that RDRAM was lost in the fray.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Revek on Wednesday April 27 2022, @07:42PM
Oh I remember them After a few years they would float through with people asking for more ram to replace the blank in the slot. You would tell them the price and they would quickly decided on something more standard.
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(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 28 2022, @04:55AM
The Nintendo 64 chose RDRAM for the same reason to reduce pressure on their unified memory model at the cost of higher latency. The PS2 also used RDRAM due to the massive amount of bandwidth it provided with little downside thanks to their hybrid heterogeneous platform. Big iron designs also experimented with RDRAM due to NUMA and locality considerations. RDRAM may not have been the best choice for all circumstances but easily blew away the competition in the right ones.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 27 2022, @06:38PM (3 children)
I've been out of the build-your-own system for quite a while so I'm interested in hearing from those who know this stuff way better than I, particularly someone like takyon who not only submitted the article, but seems to follow hardware specs and details very well. I (vaguely) remember the RAMBUS saga, with the vendor consortium and torpedo patents and backstabbing and such, but this doesn't sound like that at all. I know you need to be cautious in taking their explanation at face value, but this sounds like they came up with their own solution, which they feel is superior to what is out there, and they're using them and expect others will follow. I don't find the fact that they've patented some aspects of it too frightening, because I'd be surprised if there wasn't a square inch on a motherboard that didn't have a patent attached to it.
(Score: 5, Informative) by takyon on Wednesday April 27 2022, @07:08PM (2 children)
Laptops have been seemingly inexorably moving towards soldered memory. That includes some enterprise/workstation ones IIRC. This seems like it could be a better way.
I guess it wasn't so necessary for thinness? Or maybe the idea here is that chunky workstation laptops can use the SO-DIMM interposer/adapter, and that thinner laptops will only be able to use CAMM.
DDR5 Demystified - Feat. Samsung DDR5-4800: A Look at Ranks, DPCs, and Do Manufacturers Matter? [anandtech.com]
AnandTech recently found that 2 DIMMs per channel of DDR5 (4 sticks) leads to slowdowns:
CAMM appears to not have that problem.
Well, that's good.
In the short term, CAMM will probably be more expensive. But DDR5 SO-DIMM is not exactly cheap right now either.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 27 2022, @08:07PM (1 child)
Thank you for your input. Do you put any stock in the "Dell will lock everything down with their patents!" angle? Can they even drive the computer market like they once could? I figure with the rise and importance (meaning the amounts of money to spend) of the huge server farms, the ones who can carry the day with solutions that give higher speeds and/or lower power will steer the direction of motherboard components more than anything else.
(Score: 4, Informative) by takyon on Wednesday April 27 2022, @09:44PM
https://hothardware.com/news/dell-claims-camm-memory-modules-laptop-ram-future [hothardware.com]
Bolded something you basically said earlier.
Everything they have said indicates that they are serious about making it an industry standard, but it remains to be seen if there will be more than one supplier (???) and customer (Dell). Dell could have squeaky clean conduct throughout this and still end up pushing expensive replacement memory.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 5, Funny) by mhajicek on Wednesday April 27 2022, @07:07PM (1 child)
Controversial Architecture Memory Module.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 27 2022, @07:32PM
Should be called "YACAMM": Yet Another Controversial Architecture Memory Module.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 27 2022, @07:27PM
IBM ThinkPad's RAM cards were standardized, extending PCMCIA and using more compact connector.
Siemens RAM cassettes were standardized too, extending the SIMM standard.
Olivetti and ?SunRace? published pinouts for their memory connectors in the manual.
And in all of these cases RAM upgrades were ridiculously small or ridiculously expensive.
And this is when ignoring patent problems...
Additionally NEC, AST and Aristo. I don't remember which ones of these, used exactly the same two transfer connectors for RAM boards, in the same places of the mainboard and modules. However, the modules were not electrically compatible, and putting one module in another computer ended with fried mainboard.
P.S. Surface-mount chips, parallel boards, transfer-type connector. I remember this... Ah, yes. Toshiba. Ended like all these previous ones.
(Score: 2) by Mojibake Tengu on Wednesday April 27 2022, @07:35PM (2 children)
Too ancient standards are delaying progress.
For increased reliability, I want both mirrored memory and error correction at the same time.
Not just in some servers, but in everything, including desktops and laptops, with adequate CPUs.
You will understand me only after one of those contemporary extraordinaire solar flares actually hits the planet.
The edge of 太玄 cannot be defined, for it is beyond every aspect of design
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Thursday April 28 2022, @12:33AM (1 child)
In the mid-70's, Burroughs had a mainframe that was duplicated they way you say. Multiple processors doing everything the same. They even had their arithmetic unit calculating the parity check bit of the results independently of the result itself, so there was a check on its correctness.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 28 2022, @08:18AM
You can buy various lockstep architectures and platforms today. They aren't cheap and you have to know how to handle their peculiar idiosyncrasies, but you can buy them.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday April 27 2022, @07:46PM (3 children)
My first thought was that this was some kind of data compression like that proposed (or already present?) for sending signals to 8K displays, perhaps with Display Port. But it seems they mean "compression" in a physical sense. I take it to mean that they are mounting the memory board in such a way that it presses hard upon the traces. Connects to the surface of the PC board, rather than the edge.
Another notion was that they meant they had compressed, as in shortened, the wire lengths. And maybe they do also mean that, working in a bit of a double meaning.
(Score: 2) by Michael on Wednesday April 27 2022, @08:21PM (2 children)
The patent (US6879266B1) says it really is data compression, not only various schemes of lossless compression, but also a lossy option.
Being thinner seems like a marketing buzzword since the thickness of current laptop memory isn't a problem.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday April 27 2022, @10:15PM (1 child)
That's an expired patent issued to a different company.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Michael on Thursday April 28 2022, @12:25AM
So it is, my mistake.
Probably is just the mechanical clip they're talking about then. The dell-branded picture on Ars does have the connector labelled as a compression connector, which supports that.