Samsung to Produce 4-Gigabyte DDR3 Chip

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/biz/2010/02/123_61399.html

Samsung to Produce 4-Gigabyte DDR3 Chip

By Kim Yoo-chul
Staff Reporter

Samsung Electronics said Wednesday it will begin processing advanced double-data rate 3 (DDR3) memory chips based on a 40-nanometer-level processing technology this month.

The Suwon, Gyeonggi Province-based technology giant said its 4 gigabyte (GB) 40-nanometer DDR3 chip is designed to enhance the energy-efficiency of servers.

``With the launching of the 4GB DDR3 production, Samsung plans to transfer more than 90 percent of its DDR dynamic random access memory (DRAM) production to 40-nanometer level technology by the end of this year,'' a company spokesman Kim Choon-gon said.

``The high-density memory is expected to bring significant power savings to data centers, server systems and high-end notebooks, all of which require greater data storage and data processing capacities,'' the official said.

The 4GB DDR3 DRAM is expected to double the memory capacity of memory modules for servers and desktop computers from existing 2GB DDR DRAM chips.

``At a module density of 16GB, the 4GB-based module can save 35 percent in power consumption and support customer requirements for more energy-efficient designs,'' the spokesman said.

Nano technology is widely regarded as a barometer for a chipmaker's manufacturing skills.

Today's semiconductor chips have millions of minuscule electronic circuits, which are etched into a silicon disk on a nanometer (one billionth of a meter) scale.

A smaller measurement means that the chip circuit consists of thinner electric lines, thereby housing more circuits and storage in the same amount of space.

Such an advantage significantly lowers production costs.

Samsung developed 2GB-based DDR2 DRAM chips in September 2007, while the company launched 1GB-based DDR2 DRAM chips in June 2005 for the first time in the industry.

Thanks to the growing demand for memory-embedded consumer electronics including PCs helped by increased corporate spending for PC replacement, analysts have generally reached a broad consensus over the continuation of the current bullish mood.

But the chief of Samsung's semiconductor division, Kwon Oh-hyun, earlier told The Korea Times that the sector leader is concerned over a possible ``bubble'' in the industry as Samsung wasn't sure whether the boom in chip demand will be real or not.

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Nice! Might mean that I can get 32GB in my Envy then Heck, even 16 would be great.

 

They mean gigabit and not gigabyte.

 

technology marches on.

Buy what you need today with the purpose of using it today. Unless you're made of $$$, expect to run that machine for about 2 years. Buying commodity PC hardware with an eye towards 'upgrading' it in the 'future' is a money-losing proposition.

Waiting on new hardware because of a technology futures announcement is equally silly. You'll never buy anything and be stuck with 1-2-3 year old stuff because of fear of regret.

 

probably. 4 GB on a single chip? so like 32 GB sticks? lol i wish.

 

WHY?! lol serious question what could you possibly be doing that needs that much or is it just bragging rights?

 

While you're right in that most people don't need that much memory, there are several user groups and programs that can utilize that much memory.

 

4GB per chip would mean up to 64GB sticks of memory if they use only one of these dies per chip. The super expensive high capacity usually server-only modules use two memory dies per chip. This would allow 128GB sticks for servers, if you want to pay thousands per stick of ram.

 

Just to keep things consistent and not confusing, the chips themselves are measured in gigaBITS (Gb), while memory has several of these chips. To calculate the actual amount of memory per module, just multiply the capacity per chip (4Gb) by the number of chips (let's say 8 arbitrarily, but there can be up to 16, according to DDR3 JEDEC standards) and divide by 8 (8 bits/byte), which equals a 4GB stick (max being 8GB if there are 16 chips/module, while DDR3 JEDEC limits chip capacity to 8Gb).

 

Awesome for many of us but what about the awesome price...

 

It'll drop the current price of the 4GB+ sticks and so on. New tech always drops the price of the current top end down to more reasonable levels.

 

There is a cooperative r&d program between IBM and Samsung regarding the construction of flash chips that store BYTES instead of bits. The challenge is that this implies an embedded storage controller inside of each chip. This implication raises the manufacturing complexity and cost of each chip.

 

That is if and only if 4GB sticks switch over to using the new higher density 4Gb chips. If they don't, it isn't going to change a thing as they will still cost the same to make. This is just one announcement from one of the dozen or more memory manufacturers. Right now with this I think they are just aiming to replace the many hundreds and thousands of dollar ram sticks used in the ultra high end environment with something much cheaper to produce than the shenanigans they are doing now. As it stands, memory manufacturers can't pump the stuff they are making out fast enough, so they have little incentive to switch a lot of production over to costly new assembly lines just yet. Also there is the issue of current consumer computers being able to handle the high density memory at full capacity. I'm really not sure on that point and it could go either way.

My prediction is that we will continue to see the lower density stuff be the standard until close to DDR4's launch, with the high density memory sticks lowering the price of ultra high capacity sticks a lot, but still above the price range of most consumers. However, our low density ram might use less power because of a die shrink between now and then.

 

A little more info.

http://www.newelectronics.co.uk/article/22783/Samsung-rolls-out-40nm-class-4Gigabit-ddr3.aspx