Tuesday, January 4th 2011
Samsung Develops Industry’s First DDR4 DRAM, Using 30nm Class Technology
Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd, a global leader in advanced semiconductor technology solutions, announced today that it completed development of the industry's first DDR4 DRAM module last month, using 30 nanometer (nm) class process technology.
"Samsung has been actively supporting the IT industry with our green memory initiative by coming up with eco-friendly, innovative memory products providing higher performance and power efficiency every year," said Dong Soo Jun, president, memory division, Samsung Electronics. "The new DDR4 DRAM will build even greater confidence in our cutting-edge green memory, particularly when we introduce four-gigabit (Gb) DDR4-based products using next generation process technology for mainstream application."
The new DDR4 DRAM module can achieve data transfer rates of 2.133 gigabits per second (Gbps) at 1.2V, compared to 1.35V and 1.5V DDR3 DRAM at an equivalent 30nm-class* process technology, with speeds of up to 1.6Gbps. When applied to a notebook, it reduces power consumption by 40 percent compared to a 1.5V DDR3 module.
The module makes use of Pseudo Open Drain (POD), a new technology that has been adapted to high-performance graphic DRAM to allow DDR4 DRAM to consume just half the electric current of DDR3 when reading and writing data.
By employing new circuit architecture, Samsung's DDR4 will be able to run from 1.6 up to 3.2Gbps, compared to today's typical speeds of 1.6Gbps for DDR3 and 800Mbps for DDR2.
Late last month, Samsung provided 1.2V 2 gigabyte (2GB) DDR4 unbuffered dual in-line memory modules (UDIMM) to a controller maker for testing.
Samsung now plans to work closely with a number of server makers to help insure completion of JEDEC standardization of DDR4 technologies in the second half of this year.
Samsung has been leading the advancement of DRAM technology ever since it developed the industry's first DDR DRAM in 1997. In 2001, it introduced the first DDR2 DRAM, and in 2005, announced the first DDR3 DRAM using 80nm-class technology.
For more information about Samsung Green memory, visit www.samsung.com/GreenMemory.
"Samsung has been actively supporting the IT industry with our green memory initiative by coming up with eco-friendly, innovative memory products providing higher performance and power efficiency every year," said Dong Soo Jun, president, memory division, Samsung Electronics. "The new DDR4 DRAM will build even greater confidence in our cutting-edge green memory, particularly when we introduce four-gigabit (Gb) DDR4-based products using next generation process technology for mainstream application."
The module makes use of Pseudo Open Drain (POD), a new technology that has been adapted to high-performance graphic DRAM to allow DDR4 DRAM to consume just half the electric current of DDR3 when reading and writing data.
By employing new circuit architecture, Samsung's DDR4 will be able to run from 1.6 up to 3.2Gbps, compared to today's typical speeds of 1.6Gbps for DDR3 and 800Mbps for DDR2.
Late last month, Samsung provided 1.2V 2 gigabyte (2GB) DDR4 unbuffered dual in-line memory modules (UDIMM) to a controller maker for testing.
Samsung now plans to work closely with a number of server makers to help insure completion of JEDEC standardization of DDR4 technologies in the second half of this year.
Samsung has been leading the advancement of DRAM technology ever since it developed the industry's first DDR DRAM in 1997. In 2001, it introduced the first DDR2 DRAM, and in 2005, announced the first DDR3 DRAM using 80nm-class technology.
For more information about Samsung Green memory, visit www.samsung.com/GreenMemory.
27 Comments on Samsung Develops Industry’s First DDR4 DRAM, Using 30nm Class Technology
Also as far as i knew it would once again be a new socket as it has been with past generations.
I would guess probably the generation after ivy bridge, that could possibly be out at the end of 2011 or start of 2012 according to rumors floating around.
When we are talking about tech products that are still years away then i want to be blown away with how amazing they sound but all this seems to be is a small step up in speed and a energy reduction.
GDDR4 failed and graphics cards moved quickly onto GDDR5. Is DDR4 based more on the former or latter?
Also another thing that seams interesting is this
"At a recent MemCon conference in Tokyo, Japan, Bill Gervasi, vice president of engineering at US Modular and a member of the JEDEC board of directors, revealed that the target effective clock-speeds for DDR4 memory would be 2133MHz - 4266MHz"
Would that mean 4266mhz at 1.2v as if so i would be very impressed
Now let's hope the timings wont be over 10....to much...
previously, before IMC's it was just a mobo upgrade away (example: see all the combo boards that ran DDR2/3 on the same mobo, common on G41 boards atm) but now with IMC's it means a new CPU and board at minimum.
I was really hoping for something much better, frequencies in the 5000MHz region so we can put the RAM back in sync with CPU frequency again, maybe even something like triple or quad data rate, maybe even a massive switch to XDR RAM.
Just something to get excited about. We are talk about 2014, at that time nVidia is talking about graphics cards with 20x the performance of today’s, Intel might have their first tera-scale 48-core CPU out, AMD might be in profit! But in the RAM world we can look forward to improved efficiency!
when AMD release new CPU's they could build in a DDR4 controller and DDR3/2 support if they want - but it works backwards, not forwards.ram and CPU have never been in sync, except maybe back in/prior to the 486 days. The rest of your comments seems to be rambling, so i'll ignore them.
OK so maybe i didn't express myself too elegantly but is DDR4 really the step up you hoped for? DDR3 has been out for years and DDR4 is not due for years, just think about how many other leaps in tech there have been in every other department except system memory.
Also there wont be 2013 :D
Let me put it another way, if you analyse DDR3 performance when it first came out in 2007 and also look around at CPU performance and GPU performance. Then in 2014 when DDR4 comes out compare the two performances’ together along with what CPUs and GPUs are out in 2014. Which do you think will stand out massively and hardly moved on at all?
I know its so much easier to complain than to do something about it but i believe the main problem for such poor performance increases is that system memory is so closed to innervations as it all has to conform to JEDEC specs so closely to work. There is no completion, no alternative to DDRx.
prettiesheat spreaders;)every generation upgrade gets us more speed for the same (or lower) wattage.
the dual core analogy is a perfect contradiction: dual/tri/quad channel memory is more than possible with DDR4 (and 3/2/1) if the memory controller supports it.
The ever increasing number of cores in CPUs eg the jump from single core to dual core was like the jump from SDR to DDR, my point is we haven't seen a jump like that in a long long time.
I can't believe you are defending the rate of increase in memory performance. CPU and GPU performances would have increase several time, maybe even an order of magnitude in the time from DDR3 to DDR4. I would expect DDR4 to bring 5-10% increase at most.
if you've actually checked with modern hardware, boosting memory speed gives us minimal gains. the boosts need to be made on the memory controller end. giving us faster MHz, tighter timings and lower operating voltages is all we need memory to do, and improve on.
I just think it would be better for everyone if there was some competition as to what RAM was used. It wouldn't be easy but if say ASUS somehow released a motherboard with, for example, XDR2/3 memory that was able to run Sandy Bridge as normal and it had a good performance lead in memory intensive benchmarks then i think there would be a much greater rate of development on the old DDRx front.
PS
looking at your computer specs it doesn't seem 'saving power' is high on your list of priorities!
back on topic i didn't see this on the AMD roadmap wonder what the chips will come with DDR4/3 i assume they kill DDR2 as its kinda dead. any info on capacities? 4gb mainstream would be nice.