Optimized for Next-generation Systems
SK Hynix announced on Nov. 15 that the chipmaker developed the world's first DDR5 DRAM that conforms to standards set by the Joint Electron Tube Engineering Council (JEDEC) Solid State Technology Association. SK Hynix plans to mass-produce this product beginning in 2020.
DDR5 is a next-generation DRAM standard that succeeds DDR4. A DDR5 DRAM is a high-speed, low-power, high-capacity product optimized for next-generation systems such as big data, AI, and machine running.
SK Hynix has decided to supply 16Gb DDR5 DRAMs, which shared the same micro-process with recently developed 2G 10G(1y) 8Gb DDR4 DRAMs, to major chipset makers. The product's operating voltage dropped from 1.2V to 1.1V compared to its predecessor DDR4 DRAM, resulting in a 30% reduction of power consumption. The transmission speed improved 1.6 times from 3200Mbps to 5200Mbps. So, the chip is able to process 41.6GB data as big as 11 3.7GB FHD movies in one second.
Products supplied to chipset vendors this time are RDIMM DRAMs and UDIMM DRAMs for servers and PCs. SK Hynix expanded unit management spaces of cell areas that store data according to the JEDEC DDR5 standard from 16 to 32 and the number of data processed at one time from 8 to 16.
It is expected that they will significantly ramp up the reliability of high-capacity systems as they were loaded with error correction circuits inside.
New technologies for ensuring ultra-fast operation were also applied. They are high-speed training technology to optimize read/write circuits of DRAMs, digital front end (DFE) technology to eliminate transmission noises, four-phase clocking to parallelize commands and data processing, low-noise and high-performance DLL and DCC circuits to minimize the distortion of read data and noises.
According to market researcher IDC, demand for DDR5 is expected to start in earnest in 2020, continue to expand to 25% of the total DRAM market in 2021 and 44% in 2022.