Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., the world leader in advanced memory technology, today announced that it is mass producing the most advanced DDR4 memory, for enterprise servers in next-generation data centers.

With the introduction of these high-performance, high-density DDR4 modules, Samsung can better support the need for advanced DDR4 in rapidly expanding, large-scale data centers and other enterprise server applications.

G.SKILL International Co. Ltd., the leading high-performance memory designer and manufacturer, announced to participate this year's Intel Developer Forum at San Francisco as part of Intel's memory community at booth no. 165, displaying maximum DDR3 memory frequency & capacity on the new Intel Core i7 processor family for socket LGA-2011 platform, also sharing plans for future technology such as DDR4. "As this is our first time attending IDF, we are very excited to show our high performance quad channel DDR3 memory and also announce our plans for DDR4," said Mark Yu, Technical Marketing at G.SKILL.

Intel's first chips based on the company's new, and Industry first, 14-nanometer manufacturing process are expected to hit markets in late 2015. With Skylake, Intel will introduce their new 9th-generation Intel HD IGP. The new platform will be the first to bring dual-channel DDR4 memory support. Skylake won't be the first platform to support DDR4 memory. In the 2H of 2014, Intel will launch their enthusiast grade Haswell-E platform, with support for quad-channel DDR4 memory. Skylake will be more of an evolution of Broadwell, which in turn is essentially an die shrink of Haswell to 14nm.

Additionally, the new mainstream platform will bring in support for PCI-E 4.0, essentially doubling the bandwidth offered by the current PCI-E 3.0 standard. More powerful GPUs from NVIDIA and AMD should be able to take advantage of the improved bandwidth, as their cards keep getting more and more powerful with each passing generation. Skylake will also introduce support for SATA Express. The advantage? SATA Express allows for a max bandwidth of about 16 Gb/s, more than 2.5x the 6 Gb/s bandwidth offered by the current SATA standard. While the product slide doesn't specify exactly as to when the first Skylake based products are scheduled to hit the market, our best guess places it at the end of 2015.

Another day, another Intel leak and a few surprises as well. During the last few days we covered Intel's desktop roadmap for the next twelve months, bringing you news and insights on Intel's plans for the aforementioned time interval. Today we bring you news on what's to follow in the second half of 2014, specifically, on Intel's Premium Desktop plans for the interval, namely Haswell-E, DDR4 and the X99 PCH.

Haswell-E will be Intel's last and best offering using the 22 nm fabrication process, it will come in two versions, core count wise, 8 core part(s) as well as 6 core part(s) with hyper-threading enabled, therefore, boasting no less that 16 execution threads for the 8 core chips and 12 execution threads for the 6 core version(s). Judging by that alone, Haswell-E should constitute a far superior upgrade over Ivy Bridge-E, compared to what the latter will be in relation to Sandy Bridge-E, Haswell-E offering two additional physical cores that translate into four additional execution threads. The new chips will boast 2.5 MB of L3 Cache per core, summing up to 20 MB total L3 cache for the 8 core parts. TDP will remain in the same neighborhood it was in the case of its predecessors, around 130-140 W.

Innodisk is proud to be among the first to supply (DDR4) registered DIMM product samples to key server companies for their next-generation systems. With this announcement, Innodisk, an industry leader in DRAM modules for industrial applications and embedded systems, will continue to offer the most advanced technology to its customers. The result of almost eight years of development, DDR4 (Double Data Rate 4) technology improves on the previous generation, DDR3, in every way. These new memory products provide users with greater performance, but can still cut costs by saving power and space, and reducing waste heat.

DDR4 offers a giant leap in peak performance over DDR3 technology, with a 3.2 Gbps data transfer rate. In fact, DDR4 could eventually even surpass this already high rate, according to standards organization JEDEC, in the same way that DDR3 surpassed its initial ceiling of 1.6 Gbps. DDR4 memory bus speeds start at 2133MHz, which already offers a huge jump in potential performance from the average bus speed of 1333MHz and 1666MHz offered by DDR3.

FinalWire announced AIDA64 v2.85, the popular system diagnostic and benchmarking suite is updated with 64-bit benchmarks optimized for AMD's "Richland" APUs, improved support for "Kaveri," "Kabini," and "Temash" APUs; and Intel "Haswell" and "Valleyview" CPUs; early support for AMD "Beema" APU, Intel "Avoton" SoC, "Crystalwell," "Ivy Bridge-E," and "Haswell-E" CPU, "Haswell-ULT" SoC; preliminary support for DDR4 and GDDR5 system memory types; and GPU support for AMD Radeon HD 8000 series and NVIDIA GeForce GTX Titan.DOWNLOAD: FinalWire AIDA64 v2.85 Installer (EXE), Archive (ZIP)

Crucial, a leading global brand of memory and storage upgrades, today announced its first DDR4 DRAM demonstration at CES 2013. As a global brand of Micron, the Crucial DDR4 DRAM demonstration is based on Micron's 30-nanometer (nm) technology, the 4-gigabit (Gb) DDR4 x8 part is the first piece of what is expected to be the industry's most complete portfolio of DDR4-based modules, which will include RDIMMs, LRDIMMs, SODIMMs and UDIMMs (standard and ECC).

The new Crucial DDR4 DRAM modules use up to 20 percent lower voltage than previous technology, enabling smaller, more efficient form factors and longer battery lives. The DDR4 DRAM will have lower voltage, operating at 1.2V in comparison to current DDR3 offerings operating from 1.35V to 1.5V. The new memory modules enable mainstream data rates that are up to twice as fast as DDR3 memory. This will enable systems to process data faster, load applications faster, improve system responsiveness, and increase the ability to multi-task and handle data-intensive programs.

Invensas Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Tessera Technologies, Inc., announced today that its new xFD "DIMM-in-a-Package" memory technology has been licensed to an original equipment manufacturer (OEM), and this technology will be demonstrated in Intel-based Ultrabooks at CES 2013. These Ultrabooks contain SK hynix memory chips packaged with Invensas' xFD "DIMM-in-a-Package" memory technology and were built by a leading manufacturer of personal computers. Invensas will showcase the new Ultrabooks at the upcoming Pepcom Digital Experience event being hosted at CES 2013 in Las Vegas.

The DIMM-in-a-Package technology replaces Small-Outline-Dual-Inline-Memory-Modules (SODIMMs), traditionally used in notebook computers, with semiconductor package components that are approximately 80% smaller and offer significant cost and performance benefits. The product is designed to support standard Double-Data-Rate (DDR3 and DDR4) DRAM and Mobile DRAM chips, as well as Intel and ARM based processor architectures.

Still reeling with over-production, swelling inventories, and spot-prices on free-fall, the DRAM industry had been banking on Microsoft's Windows 8 operating system launch to come to their salvation. Apparently, it didn't. As is customary with each new Windows launch, orders for DRAM components go up, as PC makers announce new products, and consumers purchase new RAM to upgrade their systems. Windows 8, which is essentially based on the same (albeit slightly tweaked) kernel as Windows 7, isn't really heavier on system resources. Let alone that, Windows 8 in itself is not expected to bring consumers to get a new PC, because Microsoft made it extremely simple and cheap to upgrade Windows 7 to 8. The industry's only real hope now is for hardware makers Intel, AMD, and ARM to introduce platforms that make use of DDR4 DRAM.

To address the significant increase in data over the next 10-15 years, and the demand for more energy-efficient network infrastructure and servers, ARM has announced the ARM CoreLink CCN-504 cache coherent network. This advanced system intellectual property (IP) can deliver up to one terabit of usable system bandwidth per second. It will enable SoC designers to provide high-performance, cache coherent interconnect for 'many-core' enterprise solutions built using the ARM Cortex-A15 MPCore processor and next-generation 64-bit processors.

LSI, a leading designer of intelligent semiconductors that accelerate storage, mobile networking and client computing, and Calxeda, an innovative supplier of disruptive SoC technology for the server market, are lead licensees for the CoreLink CCN-504 launch.

JEDEC Solid State Technology Association, the global leader in the development of standards for the microelectronics industry, today announced the initial publication of its widely-anticipated Synchronous DDR4 (Double Data Rate 4) standard. JEDEC DDR4 (JESD79-4) has been defined to provide higher performance, with improved reliability and reduced power, thereby representing a significant achievement relative to previous DRAM memory technologies. The new DDR4 standard is available for free download from the JEDEC website at www.jedec.org/standards-documents/results/jesd79-4%20ddr4.

DDR4 offers a range of innovative features designed to enable high speed operation and broad applicability in a variety of applications including servers, laptops, desktop PCs and consumer products. In addition to the advantages described later in this release, the new technology has been defined with a goal of simplifying migration and enabling adoption of an industry-wide standard.

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., the world leader in advanced memory technology, today announced that it has begun sampling the industry's first 16-gigabyte (GB) double data rate-4 (DDR4), registered dual inline memory modules (RDIMMs), designed for use in enterprise server systems.

"By launching these new high-density DDR4 modules, Samsung is embracing closer technical cooperation with key CPU and server companies for development of next-generation green IT systems," said Wanhoon Hong, executive vice president, memory sales & marketing, Samsung Electronics. "Samsung will also aggressively move to establish the premium memory market for advanced applications including enterprise server systems and maintain the competitive edge for Samsung Green Memory products, while working on providing 20 nanometer (nm) class based DDR4 DRAM in the future."

Micron Technology, Inc., one of the world's leading providers of advanced semiconductor solutions, today announced development of its first fully functional DDR4 DRAM module. The company has begun sampling and has received feedback from major customers to support quick implementation for applications in 2013.

It is expected that the enterprise and micro-server markets will take full advantage of the new features and specifications designed into DDR4, accelerating early adoption of the technology. In addition, the fast-growing ultrathin client and tablet markets will also benefit from new opportunities enabled by the power savings and performance features of Micron's DDR4.

With over-production, swelling-inventories, and cutthroat competition that doesn't allow even subtle price-increases, DDR3 is a lost-cause for DRAM makers such as Samsung. It is hence hedging its bets on the early arrival of DDR4, and the only company that can make that happen is Intel. Samsung is not only a major supplier of DRAM memory, but also a big player in server memory. It had its first DDR4 UDIMM ready as early as in January 2011. Reports of Intel slating DDR4-equipped platforms in 2013 has Samsung perturbed. Samsung and Hynix are the only two DRAM majors with developed DDR4 products. According to DigiTimes' analysis, DRAM vendors see DDR4 as the only way they can pull themselves out of their ailing situation.

The computing industry will see its next transition to a new memory standard only by 2014, and enterprise processors based on the "Haswell" microarchitecture will drive the change, according to a VR-Zone report. While client processors based on the Haswell architecture will retain current DDR3 memory standard with a possibility of higher DDR3 clock speeds, enterprise processors under the "Haswell-EX" family will feature the industry's first DDR4 memory controllers for x86. Following that, DDR4 will filter down to future client platforms. Pictured below, is a DDR4 UDIMM by Samsung.

According to DRAMeXchange, a research division of TrendForce, the following report presents a forecast of six major DRAM and NAND Flash industry trends in 2012-2015.

Trend-1: Mainstream PC DRAM Specification DDR3 to Dominate Market Until 2014

DDR3 has been the mainstream PC DRAM specification since 2011, and DRAMeXchange expects it will remain so until 2014. Although JEDEC will officially announce standards for DDR4 in 2012, DRAMeXchange is conservative as to whether the new specification will follow the historical pattern set by DDR and DDR2 and hit the market in 2014-2015, as the marginal benefit to PC performance provided by DDR4 will be limited. However, Intel will still hold decisive influence over the matter.

Micron Technology, one of the biggest DRAM companies, has announced that it's working the JEDEC standards organization for computer memory, to standardize a new DRAM interface and die-stacking technology called three-dimensional stacking, or 3DS, which may be incorporated into the upcoming DDR4 standard. X-bit labs has a nice summary of how 3DS works:

The idea behind 3DS is to use specially designed and manufactured master-and-slave DRAM die, with only the master die interfacing with the external memory controller. 3DS technology uses optimized DRAM die, single DLL per stack, reduced active logic, single shared external I/O, improved timing, and reduced load to the external world. This combination of features can improve timing, bus speeds, and signal integrity while lowering both power consumption and system overhead for next-generation modules, according to Micron.

JEDEC Solid State Technology Association, the global leader in the development of standards for the microelectronics industry, today announced selected key attributes of its widely-anticipated DDR4 (Double Data Rate 4) standard. With publication forecasted for mid-2012, JEDEC DDR4 will represent a significant advancement in performance with reduced power usage as compared to previous generation technologies. When published, the new standard will be available for free download at www.jedec.org.

DDR4 is being developed with a range of innovative features designed to enable high speed operation and broad applicability in a variety of applications including servers, laptops, desktop PCs and consumer products. Its speed, voltage and architecture are all being defined with the goal of simplifying migration and facilitating adoption of the standard.
A DDR4 voltage roadmap has been proposed that will facilitate customer migration by holding VDDQ constant at 1.2V and allowing for a future reduction in the VDD supply voltage. Understanding that enhancements in technology will occur over time, DDR4 will help protect against technology obsolescence by keeping the I/O voltage stable.

Hynix Semiconductor Inc. ('Hynix') today announced that it has developed 2Gb(Gigabit) DDR4 DRAM and DDR4 DRAM based 2GB(Gigabyte) ECC-SODIMM(Error Check & Correction Small Outline Dual In-line Memory Module) applying its leading 30nm class process technology. The DDR4 DRAM product meets the JEDEC standard and the module product is designed for the micro server.

DDR4 DRAM is a next generation memory product which consumes less electronic power while it transfers data as twice as faster than the existing DDR3 DRAM. The device works at the industry's fastest speed of 2400Mbps(Megabits per second), which is also 80% faster than DDR3 1333Mbps product. The Module product operates at such a low voltage of 1.2V and processes up to 19.2 GB (Gigabytes) of data per second with a 64-bit I/O.

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."

PC DDR4-SDRAM, the successor standard for DDR3-SDRAM, which continues increasing memory bandwidths while maintaining the same electrical footprints, surfaced on JEDEC roadmaps, at a recent MemCon conference in Tokyo, Japan. Just the target clock speed range for DDR2-SDRAM was 400~1066 MHz, and that of DDR3-SDRAM is 1066~2133 MHz, the DDR4-SDRAM standard will aim for clock speeds between 2133 and 4266 MHz, with DRAM voltages of 1.1~1.2V, the voltages standards-compliant DDR3 memory will ultimately end up with. Some of the first DDR4 memory chips will be built on the 32 nm or 36 nm manufacturing processes. JEDEC expects sampling of the new memory type to start in 2011 for the industry to come up with appropriate memory controllers and deployment platforms, while actual mass production is slated by 2015.

The transition between PC memory standards has always relied on changes in PC platforms for effectiveness. For example, the LGA 775 saw transition between two standards, the i915 MCH supported DDR and DDR2 memory, i925 onwards it became mandatory for people to use DDR2 memory as the platform required it. In came DDR3 and it became optional for users to choose it over DDR2. Even now, there is only a gradual transit between DDR2 and DDR3. With Nehalem however, it will become mandatory to use DDR3 memory, both with the LGA 1366 and LGA 1160 socket motherboards in either two or three channel configurations.

Qimonda has already chalked out plans for a smooth transition to DDR4 PC memory. According to Qimonda's development plan, DDR4 would be out by 2012. The memory standard will operate at (DDR) frequencies as high as 2,133 MHz at an approximate voltage of 1.2 V and by 2013, we could be seeing 2,667 MHz memory at 1.0 V, a phase during which there's a transition between the current DDR3 and future DDR4 PC memory standards.