Widening Gaps with the Competition
Samsung Electronics will begin volume production of the industry’s first 12 Gb mobile DRAMs, which offer the highest speed and largest capacity ever achieved, late this month. The newly developed product is expected to go into the Galaxy S11, the company’s flagship smartphone to be launched early next year.
Samsung Electronics announced on July 18 that it would start volume production of a 12 GB low power double data rate 5 (LPDDR5) mobile DRAM package, which is loaded with eight 10-nano (1y) 12 Gb chips, beginning at the end of this month. This comes in five months after volume production of a 12 GB LPDDR4X mobile package, which realized the largest capacity ever, began in March. Samsung Electronics will be able to strengthen its premium memory lineup with volume production of 12 GB LPDDR5 memory chips.
The latest mobile DRAMs are roughly 1.3 times faster than the LPDDR4X DRAMs, which are used for high-end smartphones. A 12 GB LPDDR5 package can process 44 GB data, or about 12 full-HD movies, in about one second. A full-HD movie has about 3.7 GB data.
The Korean semiconductor giant is planning to launch a faster product next year. The company focused on products with speeds of 5,500 Mbps per pin this year, but it will sell 6,400 Mbps products next year. In addition, the chipmaker introduced a new circuit structure to realize low power in a super high speed and pruned power consumption by up to 30 percent compared to current products.
With volume production of LPDDR5 mobile DRAMs, Samsung Electronics will be able to provide mobile DRAM solutions that can realize high-definition video shooting, AI and machine learning on next-generation 5G flagship smartphones, while at the same time increasing battery life.
The new DRAMs are expected to power Samsung's flagship smartphone model Galaxy S11 to be released next year. The Galaxy S10 came out with previously developed 12 GB LPDDR4X DRAMs.
In addition, Samsung Electronics is planning to build a mass production system for LPDDR5 mobile DRAMs in Pyeongtaek Campus next year in accordance with global customers’ demand. At the same time, it plans to develop a 16 Gb LPDDR5 DRAM that offers an expanded capacity and enhanced performance to strengthen its competitiveness in the mobile chip market.