Samsung has announced its first LPDDR5 memory chip. With various improvements in power-saving and speed, this low-power next-gen memory is eventually set to take over from the LPDDR4X memory standard currently ruling the roost.
DDR5 as a standard is still a little way off yet, and LPDDR5 is really a much bigger deal for mobile devices than their desktop counterparts. However, our gaming PCs will end up with this speedy memory eventually, Samsung confirm that it developed its first 16Gb DDR5 chip back in February, and now we have a little more idea of what to expect when the time comes.
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LPDDR5 features a data rate of 6,400Mbps, 50% greater than the current flagship LPDDR4X memory Samsung produce reaches. It will also be 30% more power efficient than its predecessor thanks to a couple of new features, such as doubling of memory banks within the DRAM cell – from eight to 16 – and processor dependent sleep modes.
Testing and validation of the 8Gb chip has already been completed in an 8GB package, although the council in charge of releasing the DDR5 standard, JEDEC, hasn’t actually finalised the plans for the memory tech as of yet. It’s still going to be a considerable amount of time, likely long past the expected launch around 2020, when these chips start to make it out into real life kits for gamers.
And the first samples of this next-gen memory standard might not be that exciting for gamers, anyways. It was only back in May when Cadence director of DRAM marketing, Marc Greenberg, mentioned that its early prototypes for DDR5 were built to be “a capacity solution, more than performance”. That doesn’t mean four years down the line we won’t be kitting out our PCs with speedy DDR5 kits, but it does mean DDR5 may be able to cram up to 32Gbs into a single chip… pretty impressive. But surely pretty pricey, too.
At least for the time being, Samsung making headway on LPDDR5 is a good sign that this memory tech is on the way sooner rather than later. However, if its supply is anything like DDR4 right now, it might be a very long while before gamers get their hands on it without selling all of their prized possessions.
At least there’s a pretty good chance that the first products featuring DDR5 that we can make the most of will be within Samsung’s SSDs. The fourth generation Samsung SSDs on the market today take advantage of LPDDR4 memory, and thefifth generation 90-layer V-NAND looks nearly ready to go, though maybe it’s a bit optimistic to think it might come quite that quickly.
But the one after that, yeah that one sure… probably.