Samsung Begins Mass Production of Industry’s First 128GB DRAM Modules

Based on a three-dimensional through-silicon via (TSV) technology, Samsung Electronics has started mass production of its new DRAM module featuring the world’s largest capacity and the highest performance and energy efficiency that are existing in today's market. The company is planning to strengthen supremacy further in the memory market by bringing TSV technology into high bandwidth memory (HBM), which is considered the next-generation memory.

Samsung Electronics announced on Nov. 26 that it has started mass production of the industry's first 128GB registered, dual inline memory module (RDIMM) in earnest. TSV technology is a high performance technique aimed at creating 3D packages that enable a vertical electrical connection of chips by making tiny holes in chips. After DRAM chips are sliced thinner than half the thickness of paper, they are pierced to contain hundreds of fine holes and vertically connected through electrodes that pass through the holes of the chips. Compared to the DRAM chip with plane structure, the cutting-edge packaging technology can improve capacity, performance and reduce power consumption.

The new 128GB TSV DRAM module is composed of 144 20-nm 8GB DDR4 DRAM chips, featuring 36 4GB TSV DRAM chips in a four-layer stack assembled with TSV packaging technology.

Samsung’s advanced 128GB TSV DDR4 RDIMM provides processing speeds from 2,400 to 3,200 megabits per second (Mbps), achieving nearly twice the performance as well as capacity, while cutting power usage by 50 percent, compared to using the previous 64GB DRAM modules, which used conventional wire bonding.

Samsung Electronics plans to begin mass production of the 128GB DDR4 load reduced DIMMs (LRDIMM) by the end of this year with the use of its TSV technology, providing the complete lineup of its new high-performance TSV DRAM modules. A LRDIMM is a kind of DRAM module for data centers and servers and suitable for large capacity. Keep pacing with the growing demand of high capacity DRAM modules, the company will rapidly increase the production of 20-nm 8GB DRAM chips.