If you even came across a PC system that had a problem with its Ram, there are high chances that you have used PassMark Software MemTest86 software for testing and revealing DRAM errors. The software uses a chain of algorithms, including SIMD and row hammer tests, to try to test if the memory is in a good shape or it has some problems. PC builders have used the software for years to detect and isolate any potential Ram issues that occurred. Today, makers of MemTest86, PassMark Software, previewed initial support for DDR5 memory in their internal software builds. That means that by the time DDR5 memory hits the consumer market, we will have software for testing any possible defective Ram.

As third quarters have typically been peak seasons for the production of various end-products, the sufficiency ratio of DRAM is expected to undergo a further decrease in 3Q21, according to TrendForce's latest investigations. However, DRAM buyers are now carrying a relatively high DRAM inventory due to their amplified purchases of electronic components in 1H21. The QoQ increase in DRAM contract prices are hence expected to slightly narrow from 18-23% in 2Q21 to 3-8% in 3Q21. Looking ahead to 4Q21, TrendForce believes that DRAM supply will continue to rise, thereby leading to either a further narrowing of price hikes or pressure constraining the potential price hike of DRAM products.

From the perspective of demand, the stay-at-home economy has resulted in persistently high demand for notebook computers. Although discrepancies still exist among notebook brands' inventory levels of various components, these brands are still making an aggressive attempt at maximizing their production of notebooks. However, as most of these brands are still carrying about 8-10 weeks' worth of PC DRAM inventory (which is relatively high), PC DRAM purchasing strategies from the buyers' side will therefore remain relatively conservative. From the perspective of supply, due to the rising demand for server DRAM, the production capacity allocated to PC DRAM is still in a severe supply crunch. Hence, DRAM suppliers are firm in their attitudes to raise PC DRAM quotes, and TrendForce expects the price negotiations between PC DRAM buyers and suppliers in 3Q21 to become both lengthier and more difficult as a result, with contract prices likely finalized at the end of July. Even so, what is now certain is that both sides have reached some level of understanding regarding the ongoing price hike of PC DRAM products. TrendForce forecasts a 3-8% increase in PC DRAM contract prices for 3Q21.

Thermaltake today introduced new Turquoise color variants of its ToughRAM RGB DDR4 memory series. These are, quite simply, a turquoise anodized paint-job on the 1.8 mm-thick aluminium heatspreaders of the memory modules; and join other color variants that include Black (default), Metallic Gold, Racing Green, Racing Red, and White. The modules are still crowned by a white silicone diffuser for the addressable RGB LEDs. The ToughRAM RGB DDR4 series comes in a number of speed-based variants, ranging from DDR4-3600 to DDR4-4400. The company didn't reveal pricing.

TrendForce's latest investigations find considerable discrepancy between prices for graphics DRAM products in the contract market and in the spot market. Quotes for graphics DRAM products continue to rise in the contract market as the severe undersupply situation persists. Furthermore, the supply fulfillment rates for orders from some medium- and small-size clients have been hovering around 30%. This undersupply situation is expected to persist through 3Q21, during which graphics DRAM contract prices are expected to rise by 8-13% QoQ. Regarding the spot market, on the other hand, the value of ETH experienced continued uptrend from the start of 2021 until May, thereby driving up the demand for graphics cards, regardless of them belonging to the newer or older series. At the height of the graphics card boom, spot prices of graphics DRAM products were up to 200% higher than contract prices. Demand from miners for graphics cards are expected to be relatively muted before cryptocurrencies return to their previous bullish trends, and the gap between the spot and contract prices of graphics DRAM products will likely narrow in 3Q21 as a result.

EliteMini TL50 is an ultra-compact and high-performance mini PC specially designed for home and office use. Equipped with Intel 11th generation CPU and Intel Iris Xe graphics. Intel Wi-Fi 6 & triple output, upgrade-friendly & windows 10 pro pre-installed.

TL50 comes with Intel Core i5-1135G7 processor (Tiger Lake), 4 cores/8 threads, backed up by Intel Iris Xe graphics, with 8M Cache, max turbo frequency up to 4.20 GHz. It is 20% faster than its predecessor with more cache memory, DDR4-3200 memory and PCIe 4.0 support. Not only ordinary work but also a little heavy games and video editing can be done comfortably.

GeIL, Golden Emperor International Ltd. - one of the world's leading PC component manufacturers, is proud to announce the next-generation DDR5 RGB high-performance gaming memory, Polaris RGB, is ready for the upcoming DDR5 platform. The GeIL Polaris RGB Gaming Memory will be available in Q4, 2021, with capacities ranging from 16 GB (16 GB x1) up to 128 GB (32 GB x4).

It has been seven years since DDR4 launched into the market, and GeIL has put countless hours into developing the new DDR5 memory modules. And in doing so, GeIL has designed the Polaris RGB to provide RGB illuminated high-performance DDR5 gaming memory and has been working closely with motherboard makers to guarantee the best compatibility and reliability among the latest Intel and AMD motherboards.

Demand for DRAM exceeded expectations in 1Q21 as the proliferation of WFH and distance education resulted in high demand for notebook computers against market headwinds, according to TrendForce's latest investigations. Also contributing to the increased DRAM demand was Chinese smartphone brands' ramp-up of component procurement while these companies, including OPPO, Vivo, and Xiaomi, attempted to seize additional market shares after Huawei's inclusion on the Entity List. Finally, DRAM demand from server manufacturers also saw a gradual recovery. Taken together, these factors led to higher-than-expected shipments from various DRAM suppliers in 1Q21 despite the frequent shortage of such key components as IC and passive components. On the other hand, DRAM prices also entered an upward trajectory in 1Q21 in accordance with TrendForce's previous forecasts. In light of the increases in both shipments and quotes, all DRAM suppliers posted revenue growths in 1Q21, and overall DRAM revenue for the quarter reached US$19.2 billion, an 8.7% growth QoQ.

Demand for PC, mobile, graphics, and special DRAM remains healthy in 2Q21. Furthermore, after two to three quarters of inventory reduction during which their DRAM demand was relatively sluggish, some server manufacturers have now kicked off a new round of procurement as they expect a persistent increase in DRAM prices. TrendForce therefore forecasts a significant QoQ increase in DRAM ASP in 2Q21. In conjunction with increased bit shipment, this price hike will likely drive total DRAM revenue for 2Q21 to increase by more than 20% QoQ.

Have you ever wondered if your graphics card could pack just a little bit more VRAM than it is advertised to come with? Well, if you have some spare time and some awesome soldering skills, you could find out yourself by placing higher-capacity VRAM chips in place of the standard memory. That is exactly what VIK-on, a hardware modder from Russia, has done with his graphics cards. Before, VIK-on modded the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 to support 16 GB of GDDR6 memory and modded NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 3070 to also support 16 GB of GDDR6 memory. Today, VIK-on has done it again and the modder has tested his skills by proving that it is possible to install 22 GB of GDDR6 memory on the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti graphics card.

The modder has taken a broken NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti GPU that was in very bad condition. He had to re-solder the GPU and fix some broken PCB traces. Finally, after that, he tried to install more VRAM than the card came with in the first place. The TU102 SKU is capable of handling up to 48 GB of VRAM, as seen with Quadro RTX 8000 GPU. However, the problem would be firmware support. VIK-on used a strap mod, leading the GPU BIOS to believe that there is much more memory present compared to the stock version, and the card managed to boot. However, some screen flickering was present and it had stability issues, so the mod isn't very successful.

GIGABYTE TECHNOLOGY Co. Ltd, a leading manufacturer of motherboards and graphics cards, today presented two gaming systems of AMD X570 platform with AORUS MODEL X and AMD B550 platform with mini system AORUS MODEL S, which adopt the top-notch components and materials for extreme performance. Enhanced by the strict verification and leading technology, GIGABYTE provides the PC system of extreme performance with optimized heat dissipation and acoustic control. The system maintains cool and quiet even under the full operation, which balance the high performance and low temperature to keep the system acoustic under 40dB without throttling. Furthermore, the three-year warranty of full system offers an ease and comprehensive service for users.

"When tackling the uplift of PC performance, multi-core, high frequency, and copious storage become a must to the premium PC platform, as well as how to make the best components matrix to provide the optimized performance with reliability turns into more inevitable." indicated by Eddie Lin, Vice President of the GIGABYTE Channel Solutions. "The new AORUS system is well-tempered by multiple verification and tuning of GIGABYTE's R&D team, which provide a perfect match of cool, quiet, and powerful performance with compatibility and three-year whole system warranty.

TrendForce's investigations find that DRAM suppliers and major PC OEMs are currently participating in the critical period of negotiating with each other over contract prices for 2Q21. Although these negotiations have yet to be finalized, the ASP of mainstream DDR4 1G*8 2666 Mbps modules has already increased by nearly 25% QoQ as of now, according to data on ongoing transactions. This represents a higher price hike than TrendForce's prior forecast of "nearly 20%". On the other hand, prices are likewise rising across various DRAM product categories in 2Q21, including DDR3/4 specialty DRAM, mobile DRAM, graphics DRAM, and in particular server DRAM, which is highly related to PC DRAM and is therefore also undergoing a higher price hike than previously expected. TrendForce is therefore revising up its forecast of overall DRAM price hike for 2Q21 from 13-18% QoQ to 18-23% QoQ instead. However, the actual increase in prices of various DRAM product categories will depend on the production capacities allocated to the respective products by DRAM suppliers.

Graphics cards have been developed over the years so that they feature multi-level cache hierarchies. These levels of cache have been engineered to fill in the gap between memory and compute, a growing problem that cripples the performance of GPUs in many applications. Different GPU vendors, like AMD and NVIDIA, have different sizes of register files, L1, and L2 caches, depending on the architecture. For example, the amount of L2 cache on NVIDIA's A100 GPU is 40 MB, which is seven times larger compared to the previous generation V100. That just shows how much new applications require bigger cache sizes, which is ever-increasing to satisfy the needs.

Today, we have an interesting report coming from Chips and Cheese. The website has decided to measure GPU memory latency of the latest generation of cards - AMD's RDNA 2 and NVIDIA's Ampere. By using simple pointer chasing tests in OpenCL, we get interesting results. RDNA 2 cache is fast and massive. Compared to Ampere, cache latency is much lower, while the VRAM latency is about the same. NVIDIA uses a two-level cache system consisting out of L1 and L2, which seems to be a rather slow solution. Data coming from Ampere's SM, which holds L1 cache, to the outside L2 is taking over 100 ns of latency.

Netac, a Chinese company based in Shenzen claiming to be the inventor of USB flash drive, has reportedly started the research and development process of DDR5 memory modules that will outperform everything on the market. Netac is rumored to have started the development of DDR5 memory that will have a frequency of over 10,000 MHz. While the JEDEC specification notes that the DDR5 frequency range is between 4800-8400 MHz, manufacturers are always welcome to go over the official specifications. Being that Netac is a relatively new player in the PC memory space, we are wondering how the company plans to execute its plans.

A 10 GHz DDR5 memory would require a very high voltage to run, meaning high heat output. We know that DDR5 chips can run at 2.6 V, according to T-FORCE, who tested such a configuration earlier. The next potential problem would be a platform that could handle 10 GHz DDR5 memory, however, by the time we get this memory in our hands, platforms will mature enough to handle high-speed RAM. The first batch of new DDR5 memory that was sent to Netac was Micron's Z9ZSB modules, which are 2Gx8, CL40 memory modules. They are manufactured in the 1znm memory manufacturing node Micron uses. It is left to be seen what we end up with and if Netac delivers on its promise.

The Apple M1 processor features integrated memory directly on the chip to reduce latency, power, and size. While this design may be good for the overall user experience it does not bode well for upgradability requiring users to pay up for a more expensive model. Some Chinese engineers have recently shown how it is possible to upgrade the soldered memory and storage components given you have the time, skills, and money. The DRAM and NAND chips are soldered to the M1 chip and motherboard but can be removed and replaced with higher capacity chips using a specialty soldering station. The engineers upgraded the base model M1 Mac Mini with 8 GB RAM and 256 GB storage to 16 GB RAM and 1 TB storage. The upgrade didn't require firmware modifications according to the source which is very impressive if true.

Today, we are getting a report coming from the South Korean press, stating that the country of South Korea has just given SK Hynix the green light to start building the mega factory complex. Being in the planning phase for a long time, the new mega factory is going to be located in Yongin, a city set 50 km south of the capital Seoul. The company expects to break ground with construction in Q4 of this year, and finish everything and start volume production of DRAM in 2025. When it comes to the size of the new mega factory, the plant is going to have an area of ​​4.15 million square meters.

The total cost of it will be about $106 billion worth of investment from SK Hynix, making all the recent fab construction plans look tiny compared to this massive investment. The mega factory complex would consist out of four fabs, where their total wafer per month output would be around 800,000. These foundries will be in charge of producing regular DRAM, and next-generation DRAM technologies like we have talked about just a few days ago. It remains to be seen what the company will come out with in the future, however, we are watching its moves closely.

On March 22nd, the CEO of SK Hynix, Seok-Hee Lee, gave a keynote speech to the IEEE International Reliability Physics Symposium (IRPS) and shared with experts a part of its plan for the future of SK Hynix products. The CEO took the stage and delivered some conceptual technologies that the company is working on right now. At the center of the show, two distinct products stood out - 3D NAND and DRAM. So far, the company has believed that its 3D NAND scaling was very limited and that it can push up to 500 layers sometime in the future before the limit is reached. However, according to the latest research, SK Hynix will be able to produce 600-layer 3D NAND technology in the distant future.

So far, the company has managed to manufacture and sample 512Gb 176-layer 3D NAND chips, so the 600-layer solutions are still far away. Nonetheless, it is a possibility that we are looking at. Before we reach that layer number, there are various problems needed to be solved so the technology can work. According to SK Hynix, "the company introduced the atomic layer deposition (ALD) technology to further improve the cell property of efficiently storing electric charges and exporting them when needed, while developing technology to maintain uniform electric charges over a certain amount through the innovation of dielectric materials. In addition to this, to solve film stress issues, the mechanical stress levels of films is controlled and the cell oxide-nitride (ON) material is being optimized. To deal with the interference phenomenon between cells and charge loss that occur when more cells are stacked at a limited height, SK Hynix developed the isolated-charge trap nitride (isolated-CTN) structure to enhance reliability."

According to TrendForce, we technology enthusiasts will have other rising prices to contend with throughout 2021, adding to the already ballooning discrete GPU and latest-gen CPUs from the leading manufacturer. The increased demand due to the COVID pandemic stretched the usual stocks to their limits, and due to the tremendous, multiple-month lead times between semiconductor orders and their fulfillment from manufacturers, the entire supply infrastructure was spread too thin for the increased worldwide needs. This leads to increased component pricing, which in turn leads to higher ASP pricing for DRAM. Adding to that equation, of course, is the fact that companies are now more careful, and are placing bigger orders so as to be able to weather these sudden demand changes.

TrendForce says that DRAM pricing has already increased 3-8% in 1Q2021, and that market adjustments will lead to an additional increase somewhere between 13-18% for contract pricing. Server pricing is projected to increase by 20%; graphics DRAM is expected to increase 10-15% in the same time-span, thus giving us that strange stomach churn that comes from having to expect even further increases in graphics card end-user pricing; and overall DRAM pricing for customers is expected to increase by 20% due to the intensifying shortages. What a time to be a system builder.

Longsys Electronics launches the Longsys DDR5 memory module (ES1). The company has done so in order to keep up with the development of storage technologies, to meet expectations from industry professionals and users regarding future product technology development, and to provide more possibilities for the future of storage industry applications. Moreover, Longsys' FORESEE, a technical storage brand, and Lexar, a storage brand for high-end consumer goods, will also provide strong support in their main areas of application.

The newly-launched DDR5 involves the prototypes of two new architecture products: the 1-Rank x8, and the 2-Rank x8 standard PC Unbuffered DIMM 288PIN On-die-ECC. Compared with DDR4, DDR5 boasts significantly improved function and performance.

AMD is slowly preparing to launch its next-generation client-oriented accelerated processing unit (APU), which is AMD's way of denoting a CPU+GPU combination. The future design is codenamed after Van Gogh, showing AMD's continuous use of historic names for their products. The APU is believed to be a design similar to the one found in the SoC of the latest PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S consoles. That means that there are Zen 2 cores present along with the latest RDNA 2 graphics, side by side in the same processor. Today, one of AMD's engineers posted a boot log of the quad-core Van Gogh APU engineering sample, showing some very interesting information.

The boot log contains information about the memory type used in the APU. In the logs, we see a part that says "[drm] RAM width 256bits DDR5", which means that the APU has an interface for the DDR5 memory and it is 256-bit wide, which represents a quad-channel memory configuration. Such a wide memory bus is typically used for applications that need lots of bandwidth. Given that Van Gogh uses RDNA 2 graphics, the company needs a sufficient memory bandwidth to keep the GPU from starving for data. While we don't have much more information about it, we can expect to hear greater details soon.

During the IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC), Samsung Foundry has presented a new step towards smaller and more efficient nodes. The new chip that was presented is a 256 Gb memory chip, based on SRAM technology. However, all of that doesn't sound interesting, until we mention the technology that is behind it. Samsung has for the first time manufactured a chip using the company's gate-all-around field-effect transistor (GAAFET) technology on the 3 nm semiconductor node. Formally, there are two types of GAAFET technology: the regular GAAFET that uses nanowires as fins of the transistor, and MBCFET (multi-bridge channel FET) that uses thicker fins that come in a form of a nanosheet.

Samsung has demonstrated the first SRAM chip that uses MBCFET technology today. The chip in question is a 256 Gb chip with an area of 56 mm². The achievement Samsung is proud of is that the chip uses 230 mV less power for writes, compared to the standard approach, as the MBCFET transistors allow the company to have many different power-saving techniques. The new 3 nm MBCFET process is expected to get into high-volume production sometime in 2022, however, we are yet to see demos of logic chips besides SRAM like we see today. Nonetheless, even the demonstration of SRAM is big progress, and we are eager to see what the company manages to build with the new technology.

Thermaltake today introduced the ToughRAM XG RGB line of DDR4 memory kits. The series debuts in 16 GB (2x 8 GB) dual-channel memory kits, with frequency-based variants of DDR4-3600, DDR4-4000, DDR4-4400, and DDR4-4600. The top DDR4-4600 kit (R016D408GX2-4600C19A) does its rated frequency with timings of 19-26-26-45, and 1.5 V DRAM voltage. The DDR4-4400 kit (R016D408GX2-4400C19A) runs at slightly tighter timings of 19-25-25-45, and 1.45 V. The DDR4-4000 kit (R016D408GX2-4000C19A) ticks at 19-23-23-42, with 1.35 V. At the same voltage, the DDR4-3600 kit (R016D408GX2-3600C18A) does 18-19-19-39.

Visually, the ToughRAM XG RGB module features a chunky aluminium heatspreader design with three distinct design tones, and three silicone addressable-RGB diffusers that hide 16 ARGB diodes. You can control the lighting using Thermaltake's NeonMaker app, or pretty much any ARGB control software, including Razer Chroma. Thermaltake guarantees advertised speeds on Intel X299, Z490, Z390, Z370, Z270, and Z170 chipset motherboards when paired with K-series processors; or AMD X570 and B550 motherboards with Ryzen 3000 "Matisse" or 5000 "Vermeer" processors. The modules are backed by lifetime warranties. The company didn't reveal pricing.

Global DRAM revenue reached US$17.65 billion, a 1.1% increase YoY, in 4Q20, according to TrendForce's latest investigations. For the most part, this growth took place because Chinese smartphone brands, including Oppo, Vivo, and Xiaomi, expanded their procurement activities for components in order to seize the market shares made available after Huawei was added to the Entity List by the U.S. Department of Commerce. These procurement activities in turn provided upward momentum for DRAM suppliers' bit shipment. However, clients in the server segment were still in the middle of inventory adjustments during this period, thereby placing downward pressure on DRAM prices. As a result, revenues of most DRAM suppliers, except for Micron, remained somewhat unchanged in 4Q20 compared to 3Q20. Micron underwent a noticeable QoQ decline in 4Q20 (which Micron counts as its fiscal 1Q21), since Micron had fewer work weeks during this period compared to the previous quarter.

In 2019, AMD and Samsung have announced that they will be joining forces to develop a new class of mobile SoCs, carrying the Exynos name and having a Radeon GPU inside. These Exynos SoCs could be used for almost everything that needs a low-power processor. While the original plan was to have these processors run inside Samsung's mobile phone offerings, it seems like there is another application for them. If the rumors coming from ZDNet Korea are correct, we are in for a surprise. According to the source, Samsung is preparing to use the Exynos SoC with Radeon graphics in the company's next-generation laptops lineup.

While there is little to no information regarding the specifications of the said system, we can expect it to be a fully Samsung-made laptop. That means that Samsung will provide display, RAM, storage, battery, and other components manufactured by the company or its divisions. This laptop is expected to replace Samsung's Galaxy Book S, which currently uses Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx SoC. The new PC is going to be Windows 10 based system. For more details, we have to wait for the announcement.

Driven by such factors as the continued development of autonomous driving technologies and the build-out of 5G infrastructure, the demand for automotive memories will undergo a rapid growth going forward, according to TrendForce's latest investigations. Take Tesla, which is the automotive industry leader in the application of autonomous vehicle technologies, as an example. Tesla has adopted GDDR5 DRAM products from the Model S and X onward because it has also adopted Nvidia's solutions for CPU and GPU. The GDDR5 series had the highest bandwidth at the time to complement these processors. The DRAM content has therefore reached at least 8 GB for vehicles across all model series under Tesla. The Model 3 is further equipped with 14 GB of DRAM, and the next-generation of Tesla vehicles will have 20 GB. If content per box is used as a reference for comparison, then Tesla far surpasses manufacturers of PCs and smartphones in DRAM consumption. TrendForce forecasts that the average DRAM content of cars will continue to grow in the next three years, with a CAGR of more than 30% for the period.

Apple has today patented a new approach to how it uses memory in the System-on-Chip (SoC) subsystem. With the announcement of the M1 processor, Apple has switched away from the traditional Intel-supplied chips and transitioned into a fully custom SoC design called Apple Silicon. The new designs have to integrate every component like the Arm CPU and a custom GPU. Both of these processors need good memory access, and Apple has figured out a solution to the problem of having both the CPU and the GPU accessing the same pool of memory. The so-called UMA (unified memory access) represents a bottleneck because both processors share the bandwidth and the total memory capacity, which would leave one processor starving in some scenarios.

Apple has patented a design that aims to solve this problem by combining high-bandwidth cache DRAM as well as high-capacity main DRAM. "With two types of DRAM forming the memory system, one of which may be optimized for bandwidth and the other of which may be optimized for capacity, the goals of bandwidth increase and capacity increase may both be realized, in some embodiments," says the patent, " to implement energy efficiency improvements, which may provide a highly energy-efficient memory solution that is also high performance and high bandwidth." The patent got filed way back in 2016 and it means that we could start seeing this technology in the future Apple Silicon designs, following the M1 chip.

Update 21:14 UTC: We have been reached out by Mr. Kerry Creeron, an attorney with the firm of Banner & Witcoff, who provided us with additional insights about the patent. Mr. Creeron has provided us with his personal commentary about it, and you can find Mr. Creeron's quote below.

ADATA Technology, a manufacturer of high-performance DRAM modules, NAND Flash products, mobile accessories, gaming products, electric power trains, and industrial solutions, is gearing up to bring next-generation DDR5 memory modules to market to offers users a significant upgrade in speed, capacity, as well as increased bandwidth per CPU cores. ADATA has been working closely with two leading motherboard makers, MSI and Gigabyte, to ensure an optimized experience through ensuring synergies between ADATA's DDR5 modules and their latest Intel platforms.

In parallel to developing the new memory modules, ADATA has also been working closely with two leading motherboard makers MSI and Gigabyte, its long-term strategic partners, to ensure their new platforms can take full advantage of DDR5. Among other initiatives, ADATA, MSI, and Gigabyte have been conducting joint testing and research to guarantee optimum DDR5 overclocking on the latest Intel platforms to meet gamers' discerning standards. ADATA and the motherboard above makers will be launching DDR5 modules and DDR5-compliant motherboards simultaneously to offer high performance to a wide range of users, including enterprises, gamers, and creators, to name a few.