• Welcome to TechPowerUp Forums, Guest! Please check out our forum guidelines for info related to our community.

NEO Semiconductor Launches Ground-Breaking 3D X-DRAM Technology, A Game Changer in the Memory Industry

TheLostSwede

News Editor
Joined
Nov 11, 2004
Messages
17,772 (2.42/day)
Location
Sweden
System Name Overlord Mk MLI
Processor AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D
Motherboard Gigabyte X670E Aorus Master
Cooling Noctua NH-D15 SE with offsets
Memory 32GB Team T-Create Expert DDR5 6000 MHz @ CL30-34-34-68
Video Card(s) Gainward GeForce RTX 4080 Phantom GS
Storage 1TB Solidigm P44 Pro, 2 TB Corsair MP600 Pro, 2TB Kingston KC3000
Display(s) Acer XV272K LVbmiipruzx 4K@160Hz
Case Fractal Design Torrent Compact
Audio Device(s) Corsair Virtuoso SE
Power Supply be quiet! Pure Power 12 M 850 W
Mouse Logitech G502 Lightspeed
Keyboard Corsair K70 Max
Software Windows 10 Pro
Benchmark Scores https://valid.x86.fr/yfsd9w
NEO Semiconductor, a leading developer of innovative technologies for 3D NAND flash and DRAM memory, today announced the launch of its ground-breaking technology, 3D X-DRAM. This development is the world's first 3D NAND-like DRAM cell array that is targeted to solve DRAM's capacity bottleneck and replace the entire 2D DRAM market. Relevant patent applications were published with the United States Patent Application Publication on April 6, 2023.

"3D X-DRAM will be the absolute future growth driver for the Semiconductor industry," said Andy Hsu, Founder and CEO of NEO Semiconductor and an accomplished technology inventor with more than 120 U.S. patents. "Today I can say with confidence that Neo is becoming a clear leader in the 3D DRAM market. Our invention, compared to the other solutions in the market today, is very simple and less expensive to manufacture and scale. The industry can expect to achieve 8X density and capacity improvements per decade with our 3D X-DRAM."




NEO Semiconductor's 3D X-DRAM is a first-of-its-kind 3D NAND-like DRAM cell array structure based on capacitor-less floating body cell technology. It can be manufactured using today's 3D NAND-like process and only needs one mask to define the bit line holes and form the cell structure inside the holes. This cell structure simplifies the process steps and provides a high-speed, high-density, low-cost, and high-yield solution. Based on Neo's estimates, 3D X-DRAM technology can achieve 128 Gb density with 230 layers, which is 8 times today's DRAM density.

An industry-wide effort is underway to bring 3D to DRAM. Adopting 3D X-DRAM involves leveraging the current mature 3D NAND process only, unlike many of the alternatives for moving DRAM to 3D proposed by academic papers and researched by the memory industry. Without 3D X-DRAM, the industry faces waiting potential decades, navigating inevitable manufacturing disruptions, and mitigating unacceptable yield and cost challenges. 3D X-DRAM is the necessary solution to address the increase in demand for high-performance and high-capacity memory semiconductors driven by the next wave of artificial intelligence (AI) applications such as ChatGPT.

"Evolving from 2D to 3D architectures has introduced compelling and extremely valuable benefits to NAND flash, so achieving a similar evolution for DRAM is highly desirable industry-wide," said Jay Kramer, President of Network Storage Advisors. "NEO Semiconductor's innovative 3D X-DRAM allows the memory industry to leverage current technologies, nodes and processes for enhancing DRAM products with NAND-like 3D architectures."

View at TechPowerUp Main Site | Source
 

TheLostSwede

News Editor
Joined
Nov 11, 2004
Messages
17,772 (2.42/day)
Location
Sweden
System Name Overlord Mk MLI
Processor AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D
Motherboard Gigabyte X670E Aorus Master
Cooling Noctua NH-D15 SE with offsets
Memory 32GB Team T-Create Expert DDR5 6000 MHz @ CL30-34-34-68
Video Card(s) Gainward GeForce RTX 4080 Phantom GS
Storage 1TB Solidigm P44 Pro, 2 TB Corsair MP600 Pro, 2TB Kingston KC3000
Display(s) Acer XV272K LVbmiipruzx 4K@160Hz
Case Fractal Design Torrent Compact
Audio Device(s) Corsair Virtuoso SE
Power Supply be quiet! Pure Power 12 M 850 W
Mouse Logitech G502 Lightspeed
Keyboard Corsair K70 Max
Software Windows 10 Pro
Benchmark Scores https://valid.x86.fr/yfsd9w
NEO Semiconductor, a "leading developer"

In what alternate reality do these words make sense? :')
As in, they're not a new company and they've apparently been working on this and other tech for a while?

And why can't they be a leading developer in their field?
It doesn't mean they're a leading producer of anything.
 
Joined
Oct 6, 2021
Messages
1,605 (1.37/day)
As in, they're not a new company and they've apparently been working on this for a while?

And why can't they be a leading developer in their field?
It doesn't mean they're a leading producer of anything.
Leadership in RAM manufacturing and development? Three manufacturers account for about 95% of the market share: Samsung, Micron, and SK Hynix.

So don't blame me for finding the set of words strange.
 

TheLostSwede

News Editor
Joined
Nov 11, 2004
Messages
17,772 (2.42/day)
Location
Sweden
System Name Overlord Mk MLI
Processor AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D
Motherboard Gigabyte X670E Aorus Master
Cooling Noctua NH-D15 SE with offsets
Memory 32GB Team T-Create Expert DDR5 6000 MHz @ CL30-34-34-68
Video Card(s) Gainward GeForce RTX 4080 Phantom GS
Storage 1TB Solidigm P44 Pro, 2 TB Corsair MP600 Pro, 2TB Kingston KC3000
Display(s) Acer XV272K LVbmiipruzx 4K@160Hz
Case Fractal Design Torrent Compact
Audio Device(s) Corsair Virtuoso SE
Power Supply be quiet! Pure Power 12 M 850 W
Mouse Logitech G502 Lightspeed
Keyboard Corsair K70 Max
Software Windows 10 Pro
Benchmark Scores https://valid.x86.fr/yfsd9w
Leadership in RAM manufacturing and development? Three manufacturers account for about 95% of the market share: Samsung, Micron, and SK Hynix.

So don't blame me for finding the set of words strange.
But this is a new technology entirely, which is what they seem to be working on in general.
Someone can be a leading developer of something, even though it never makes it onto the market.
Just look at Rambus...
 
Joined
Mar 31, 2014
Messages
1,533 (0.39/day)
Location
Grunn
System Name Indis the Fair (cursed edition)
Processor 11900k 5.1/4.9 undervolted.
Motherboard MSI Z590 Unify-X
Cooling Heatkiller VI Pro, VPP755 V.3, XSPC TX360 slim radiator, 3xA12x25, 4x Arctic P14 case fans
Memory G.Skill Ripjaws V 2x16GB 4000 16-19-19 (b-die@3600 14-14-14 1.45v)
Video Card(s) EVGA 2080 Super Hybrid (T30-120 fan)
Storage 970EVO 1TB, 660p 1TB, WD Blue 3D 1TB, Sandisk Ultra 3D 2TB
Display(s) BenQ XL2546K, Dell P2417H
Case FD Define 7
Audio Device(s) DT770 Pro, Topping A50, Focusrite Scarlett 2i2, Røde VXLR+, Modmic 5
Power Supply Seasonic 860w Platinum
Mouse Razer Viper Mini, Odin Infinity mousepad
Keyboard GMMK Fullsize v2 (Boba U4Ts)
Software Win10 x64/Win7 x64/Ubuntu
Lol this isn't making any sense whatsoever, where is the transistor in this design? These are literally the most useless diagrams I've seen in my life...

Where are the patents?
 

TheLostSwede

News Editor
Joined
Nov 11, 2004
Messages
17,772 (2.42/day)
Location
Sweden
System Name Overlord Mk MLI
Processor AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D
Motherboard Gigabyte X670E Aorus Master
Cooling Noctua NH-D15 SE with offsets
Memory 32GB Team T-Create Expert DDR5 6000 MHz @ CL30-34-34-68
Video Card(s) Gainward GeForce RTX 4080 Phantom GS
Storage 1TB Solidigm P44 Pro, 2 TB Corsair MP600 Pro, 2TB Kingston KC3000
Display(s) Acer XV272K LVbmiipruzx 4K@160Hz
Case Fractal Design Torrent Compact
Audio Device(s) Corsair Virtuoso SE
Power Supply be quiet! Pure Power 12 M 850 W
Mouse Logitech G502 Lightspeed
Keyboard Corsair K70 Max
Software Windows 10 Pro
Benchmark Scores https://valid.x86.fr/yfsd9w
Lol this isn't making any sense whatsoever, where is the transistor in this design? These are literally the most useless diagrams I've seen in my life...

Where are the patents?
Does this help? Unfortunately there isn't much more info available from the company at the moment.

1683127594330.png
 
Joined
Mar 31, 2014
Messages
1,533 (0.39/day)
Location
Grunn
System Name Indis the Fair (cursed edition)
Processor 11900k 5.1/4.9 undervolted.
Motherboard MSI Z590 Unify-X
Cooling Heatkiller VI Pro, VPP755 V.3, XSPC TX360 slim radiator, 3xA12x25, 4x Arctic P14 case fans
Memory G.Skill Ripjaws V 2x16GB 4000 16-19-19 (b-die@3600 14-14-14 1.45v)
Video Card(s) EVGA 2080 Super Hybrid (T30-120 fan)
Storage 970EVO 1TB, 660p 1TB, WD Blue 3D 1TB, Sandisk Ultra 3D 2TB
Display(s) BenQ XL2546K, Dell P2417H
Case FD Define 7
Audio Device(s) DT770 Pro, Topping A50, Focusrite Scarlett 2i2, Røde VXLR+, Modmic 5
Power Supply Seasonic 860w Platinum
Mouse Razer Viper Mini, Odin Infinity mousepad
Keyboard GMMK Fullsize v2 (Boba U4Ts)
Software Win10 x64/Win7 x64/Ubuntu
So it has to activate the whole layer of the array in one go? Since the word line is a whole layer... This will drive up the number of arrays required immensely and you'll have a huge amount of ancillary circuitry that can't be placed under the arrays... I'll wait until I see a functioning sample...
 
Joined
Apr 18, 2019
Messages
2,397 (1.15/day)
Location
Olympia, WA
System Name Sleepy Painter
Processor AMD Ryzen 5 3600
Motherboard Asus TuF Gaming X570-PLUS/WIFI
Cooling FSP Windale 6 - Passive
Memory 2x16GB F4-3600C16-16GVKC @ 16-19-21-36-58-1T
Video Card(s) MSI RX580 8GB
Storage 2x Samsung PM963 960GB nVME RAID0, Crucial BX500 1TB SATA, WD Blue 3D 2TB SATA
Display(s) Microboard 32" Curved 1080P 144hz VA w/ Freesync
Case NZXT Gamma Classic Black
Audio Device(s) Asus Xonar D1
Power Supply Rosewill 1KW on 240V@60hz
Mouse Logitech MX518 Legend
Keyboard Red Dragon K552
Software Windows 10 Enterprise 2019 LTSC 1809 17763.1757
Looks kinda like a nano-scale adaptation of 'stacked' DDR1 DRAM I've seen.

At the very least, this'll be IP that can be built off of. TB-density DRAM looks closer than ever (yet, still 'a ways off')
 
Joined
Jan 25, 2020
Messages
2,227 (1.24/day)
System Name GrandadsBadAss
Processor I7 13700k w/ HEATKILLER IV PRO Copper Nickel
Motherboard MSI Z790 Tomahawk Wifi
Cooling BarrowCH Boxfish 200mm-HWLabs SR2 420/GTS 360-BP Dual D5 MOD TOP- 2x Koolance PMP 450S
Memory 2x16gb G.SKILL Trident Z5 Neo RGB 6400
Video Card(s) Asrock 6800xt PG D w/ Byski A-AR6900XT-X
Storage WD SN850x 1TB NVME M.2/Samsung 980 Pro 1TB NVMe M.2
Display(s) Acer XG270HU
Case Phanteks Enthoo Pro 2 Server Edition w/3 Noctua NF-A14 2000 IP67/4 be quiet! LIGHT WINGS LX 120mm
Audio Device(s) Logitech z623 <---THE SUCK
Power Supply FSP Hydro Ti PRO 1000w
Mouse Logitech G502
Keyboard Roccat Vulcan Aimo
Software Win 10/11pro
Interesting. I look forward to seeing something tangible sooner rather than later. Altho my assumption is they will lease or sell the ip to the big dogs. Who knows.
 
Joined
Dec 12, 2020
Messages
1,755 (1.19/day)
I remember Intel briefly manufactured motherboards/chipsets for RAMBUS RAM, but that didn't last long at all. Are Intel and AMD willing to embrace this new memory tech. and design CPU's around it? Because memory controllers haven't been separate, discrete chips for a long, long time.
 
Joined
Jan 3, 2021
Messages
3,606 (2.49/day)
Location
Slovenia
Processor i5-6600K
Motherboard Asus Z170A
Cooling some cheap Cooler Master Hyper 103 or similar
Memory 16GB DDR4-2400
Video Card(s) IGP
Storage Samsung 850 EVO 250GB
Display(s) 2x Oldell 24" 1920x1200
Case Bitfenix Nova white windowless non-mesh
Audio Device(s) E-mu 1212m PCI
Power Supply Seasonic G-360
Mouse Logitech Marble trackball, never had a mouse
Keyboard Key Tronic KT2000, no Win key because 1994
Software Oldwin
So it has to activate the whole layer of the array in one go? Since the word line is a whole layer... This will drive up the number of arrays required immensely and you'll have a huge amount of ancillary circuitry that can't be placed under the arrays... I'll wait until I see a functioning sample...
Those drawings may be intentionally very inaccurate, and word lines may be actually lines. 3D NAND also has lines for control signals, not just entire planes.

I'm looking at this article at SemiEngineering, and the capacitor-less cell in Fig 5 does look like this new transistor, just reshaped. It also looks like a plain mosfet, which has an insufficient capacitance to store data, so there must be some secret sauce at work too.

Interesting. I look forward to seeing something tangible sooner rather than later. Altho my assumption is they will lease or sell the ip to the big dogs. Who knows.
Of course, the most they can hope for is sell the IP. Or themselves, for that matter. They can't just suddenly (I mean, in a decade) the Samsungs and Microns. They also have competition - the article I linked explains ideas by at least three other companies, none of them known for memory manufacturing, and manufacturers too have some R&D money to put aside.

These companies are taking some ideas from 3D NAND development, but why wouldn't they skip some early stages in NAND development and jump straight to ... QLC! Shingled, too!
 
Last edited:
Joined
Sep 10, 2015
Messages
530 (0.16/day)
System Name My Addiction
Processor AMD Ryzen 7950X3D
Motherboard ASRock B650E PG-ITX WiFi
Cooling Alphacool Core Ocean T38 AIO 240mm
Memory G.Skill 32GB 6000MHz
Video Card(s) Sapphire Pulse 7900XTX
Storage Some SSDs
Display(s) 42" Samsung TV + 22" Dell monitor vertically
Case Lian Li A4-H2O
Audio Device(s) Denon + Bose
Power Supply Corsair SF750
Mouse Logitech
Keyboard Glorious
VR HMD None
Software Win 10
Benchmark Scores None taken
Leadership in RAM manufacturing and development? Three manufacturers account for about 95% of the market share: Samsung, Micron, and SK Hynix.

So don't blame me for finding the set of words strange.
No one said anything about manufacturing. This is an R&D company deveoping DRAM technologies.
 
Joined
Sep 15, 2011
Messages
6,761 (1.39/day)
Processor Intel® Core™ i7-13700K
Motherboard Gigabyte Z790 Aorus Elite AX
Cooling Noctua NH-D15
Memory 32GB(2x16) DDR5@6600MHz G-Skill Trident Z5
Video Card(s) ZOTAC GAMING GeForce RTX 3080 AMP Holo
Storage 2TB SK Platinum P41 SSD + 4TB SanDisk Ultra SSD + 500GB Samsung 840 EVO SSD
Display(s) Acer Predator X34 3440x1440@100Hz G-Sync
Case NZXT PHANTOM410-BK
Audio Device(s) Creative X-Fi Titanium PCIe
Power Supply Corsair 850W
Mouse Logitech Hero G502 SE
Software Windows 11 Pro - 64bit
Benchmark Scores 30FPS in NFS:Rivals
How is this different from HBM RAM?
 
Joined
Oct 27, 2009
Messages
1,190 (0.21/day)
Location
Republic of Texas
System Name [H]arbringer
Processor 4x 61XX ES @3.5Ghz (48cores)
Motherboard SM GL
Cooling 3x xspc rx360, rx240, 4x DT G34 snipers, D5 pump.
Memory 16x gskill DDR3 1600 cas6 2gb
Video Card(s) blah bigadv folder no gfx needed
Storage 32GB Sammy SSD
Display(s) headless
Case Xigmatek Elysium (whats left of it)
Audio Device(s) yawn
Power Supply Antec 1200w HCP
Software Ubuntu 10.10
Benchmark Scores http://valid.canardpc.com/show_oc.php?id=1780855 http://www.hwbot.org/submission/2158678 http://ww
Joined
Aug 22, 2007
Messages
3,593 (0.57/day)
Location
Terra
System Name :)
Processor Intel 13700k
Motherboard Gigabyte z790 UD AC
Cooling Noctua NH-D15
Memory 64GB GSKILL DDR5
Video Card(s) Gigabyte RTX 4090 Gaming OC
Storage 960GB Optane 905P U.2 SSD + 4TB PCIe4 U.2 SSD
Display(s) Alienware AW3423DW 175Hz QD-OLED + AOC Agon Pro AG276QZD2 240Hz QD-OLED
Case Fractal Design Torrent
Audio Device(s) MOTU M4 - JBL 305P MKII w/2x JL Audio 10 Sealed --- X-Fi Titanium HD - Presonus Eris E5 - JBL 4412
Power Supply Silverstone 1000W
Mouse Roccat Kain 122 AIMO
Keyboard KBD67 Lite / Mammoth75
VR HMD Reverb G2 V2
Software Win 11 Pro
These companies are taking some ideas from 3D NAND development, but why wouldn't they skip some early stages in NAND development and jump straight to ... QLC! Shingled, too!
If they want to keep read/write latencies down, they won't be going straight to QLC :laugh:
They really did just use the 3D NAND topology. Obviously the transistor etc have to be designed differently. It would be interesting to see if/how they use the trench cell, etc.
 
Joined
Jan 3, 2021
Messages
3,606 (2.49/day)
Location
Slovenia
Processor i5-6600K
Motherboard Asus Z170A
Cooling some cheap Cooler Master Hyper 103 or similar
Memory 16GB DDR4-2400
Video Card(s) IGP
Storage Samsung 850 EVO 250GB
Display(s) 2x Oldell 24" 1920x1200
Case Bitfenix Nova white windowless non-mesh
Audio Device(s) E-mu 1212m PCI
Power Supply Seasonic G-360
Mouse Logitech Marble trackball, never had a mouse
Keyboard Key Tronic KT2000, no Win key because 1994
Software Oldwin
Last edited:
Joined
Jan 11, 2022
Messages
916 (0.85/day)
Unless they're cooking up something themselves.


Completely different. They're building many layers, potentially hundreds, on a single silicon die, not just stacking dies.
So 400w cpu 600w gpu and 600w stacked dram
 
Joined
Apr 18, 2019
Messages
2,397 (1.15/day)
Location
Olympia, WA
System Name Sleepy Painter
Processor AMD Ryzen 5 3600
Motherboard Asus TuF Gaming X570-PLUS/WIFI
Cooling FSP Windale 6 - Passive
Memory 2x16GB F4-3600C16-16GVKC @ 16-19-21-36-58-1T
Video Card(s) MSI RX580 8GB
Storage 2x Samsung PM963 960GB nVME RAID0, Crucial BX500 1TB SATA, WD Blue 3D 2TB SATA
Display(s) Microboard 32" Curved 1080P 144hz VA w/ Freesync
Case NZXT Gamma Classic Black
Audio Device(s) Asus Xonar D1
Power Supply Rosewill 1KW on 240V@60hz
Mouse Logitech MX518 Legend
Keyboard Red Dragon K552
Software Windows 10 Enterprise 2019 LTSC 1809 17763.1757
Top