Monday, January 16th 2023
CAMM to Replace the Decades-old SO-DIMM Laptop Memory, JEDEC and Dell Argue
Laptop memory has been a controversial topic for many years. Its proprietary standard, SO-DIMM, has shown signs of aging as the decades-old JEDEC standard didn't adapt to other expanding capacities and speed trends. Today, JEDEC and Dell think that the future of laptop memory is in the new CAMM standard that both companies are working on. The introduction of CAMM comes from Dell, whose Senior Distinguished Engineer Tom Schnell is working on it. "We have unanimous approval of the 0.5 spec," said Mr. Schnell for PCWorld. One of the problems that SO-DIMM is facing is the capacity and speed issue, where the current DDR5 SO-DIMM memory stops at around 6400 MT/s. CAMM, on the other hand, starts from that speed and works its way up to offer higher capacities as well.
With Dell introducing CAMM in its laptops, it had no intentions of creating a proprietary solution but rather an expandable and upgradable memory platform with various benefits. With JEDEC's involvement in finalizing this, the CAMM standard is slowly on its way to becoming a viable option for different laptop manufacturers. Dell's Tom Schnell didn't reveal what companies are in the process of creating the final specification; however, we know that 32 of them are present, including Apple. If others join, the standard could take over future laptop designs and offer higher speeds and higher capacities, especially in the mobile workstation space where it matters. Below is an example of a CAMM memory module with a patent showing the SO-DIMM (upper left) versus CAMM (lower right) and CAMM's smaller trace path. With smaller tracing, the latency is also going down, so the new standard will bring additional efficiency. Additionally, devices that are based on LPDDR memory could have an upgrade path with the installment of CAMM.
Source:
PCWorld
With Dell introducing CAMM in its laptops, it had no intentions of creating a proprietary solution but rather an expandable and upgradable memory platform with various benefits. With JEDEC's involvement in finalizing this, the CAMM standard is slowly on its way to becoming a viable option for different laptop manufacturers. Dell's Tom Schnell didn't reveal what companies are in the process of creating the final specification; however, we know that 32 of them are present, including Apple. If others join, the standard could take over future laptop designs and offer higher speeds and higher capacities, especially in the mobile workstation space where it matters. Below is an example of a CAMM memory module with a patent showing the SO-DIMM (upper left) versus CAMM (lower right) and CAMM's smaller trace path. With smaller tracing, the latency is also going down, so the new standard will bring additional efficiency. Additionally, devices that are based on LPDDR memory could have an upgrade path with the installment of CAMM.
33 Comments on CAMM to Replace the Decades-old SO-DIMM Laptop Memory, JEDEC and Dell Argue
I'm not sold on the CAMM form factor, as although it's low profile, it also seems to be a bit over-engineered and some of the larger form factors aren't what I'd call appealing, but if we're going to go past 128 GB of RAM in a laptop, it might be needed. Not sure if Dell is planning on using it in SFF type devices too, but only in laptops doesn't quite make sense.
The upside of CAMM is that we might see laptops with LPDDR memory having an upgrade path.
I just don’t see this case as anything but an attempt for one man to better himself. I would love to read the technical specifications and documentation submitted because I would be curious how many of the density and form factor issues the “other” companies expressed are addressed in this persons initial design, and how many of Dells are addressed in comparison.
If at all of course. For all I know everyone is playing nice and this man is a literal saint with a heart of gold :love:
However, in most "normal" scenarios, it wouldn't make any difference, as long as regular DDR memory is being used. That said, it seems like the SO-DIMM design can't go above 6400 MT/s due to signal integrity issues.Agreed, as Dell presented four different sizes if I remember right, plus the converter for SO-DIMMs. Even though the screw holes are places in the same spaces, the physical size difference is going to be too big depending on how notebooks are designed, that it might prevent upgrades in the future.
However, keep in mind that there will only be one CAMM module in a laptop, as each CAMM module already operates in dual-channel mode. The really small modules might end up being limited to only 32 GB, depending on the DRAM chip density, as they only seem to house eight chips in total, or four per channel. In fact, the orignal small module was only 16 GB as per the picture below.
Admittedly the diagram in this news post shows double sided CAMM modules, it doesn't appear that Dell's design catered for that, or at least they haven't shown any CAMM modules with memory on the bottom.
Keep in mind that the SO-DIMMs stick out a fair bit from the slots.
And yes, this is a mechanical adapter.
At least that should be the 32 GB one, if we go by the sizes in my previous post, which should be at least 64 GB for DDR5.
SoDIMM is done, the DIMMs themselves are too bulky for modern laptops, and the slot is even taller. SoDIMM slots make the traces to the IMC longer, which reduces signal integrity and knocks at least a GT/s off the memory speeds which is a big loss just for the sake of flexibility which many buyers will never even take advantage of.
Additionally, laptop BIOSes on most thin & lights are almost exclusively worthless when it comes to XMP or other RAM clock/timing options for SoDIMMs. You're getting the JEDEC defaults and that's it, which makes so many of the faster/tighter SoDIMM kits pointless because your laptop BIOS is just going to run them at super-slow, super-safe, lowest-common-denominator timings. DDR4-2133 and DDR5-4800 etc.
(Many are just secured by screws, think VGA, DVI and probably those on MXM GPU modules, and industrial types too.)
"Dude, your getting duhHell memory" (mainly cause theirs is the only one that works in your machine!)