LPDDR5 RAM memory has arrived to replace LPDDR4. The evolution of memory has suffered, once again, a multi-year standstill in terms of development and DDR4 has been exploited for several years.
However, times to time new systems are appearing (although there is still some reluctance to adopt it) that support this memory, from laptops to mobile devices and even a lot more as well.
This LPDDR5 not only brings more performance, it has also been designed to be somewhat more versatile, and can be used without limitations in all types of devices.
In this way, there will not be such important jumps between the performance that is delivered in a laptop and in a smartphone.
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What is the LPDDR RAM?
DDR memories, such as DDR4 or DDR5, also have derivatives. This is the case of LPDDR4 or LPDDR5, as well as its sisters LPDDR4X and LPDDR5X.
All of them share a large number of qualities, but they differ in the objective for which they are designed.
The acronym LPDDR corresponds to Low-Power DDR, a low-power DDR memory, designed for all those computers that depend on a battery or need to reduce their consumption to be as efficient as possible.
On the other hand, LPDDR4x was a proposal by Samsung, as a variant of LPDDR4, and would later become a standard, also allowing evolutions such as LPDDR5x.
This memory not only saved even more power by reducing the I/O voltage from 1.1v to just 0.6v, but also has die improvements for smaller applications, speed improvements, etc.
Characteristics of LPDDR5 RAM
This memory was published under the JESD209-5 standard in 2019 by JEDEC, a few months after the LPDDR5 demo prototype released in 2018 by Samsung.
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The LPDDR5 includes interesting technical features and improvements over its predecessor. Some of these specifications are:
- Supports 4, 8, or 16 bank configurations for larger capacities.
- The speed at which the chips work is 800 Mhz.
- 6400 Mbps rate.
- Total bandwidth of 51.2 GB/s.
- Ability to switch between two different frequencies.
- Consumption savings of 20%.
- 50% performance increase.
- Data-Copy and Write-X commands.
- Dynamic Voltage and Frequency Scaling.
- New clock architecture called WCK & Read Strobe.
The devices, which have announced, will support this LPDDR5 are:
- AMD Van Gogh (APUs).
- Intel Tiger Lake.
- Apple Silicon.
- HiSilicon Kirin 9000 Series (Huawei).
- Qualcomm Snapdragon 888.
Little by little more will join the list, allowing memory controllers, or MMUs, to support this new LPDDR5 technology.
LPDDR5x
LPDDR5x was published under the JESD209-5B standard by JEDEC during the summer of 2021. This new improved implementation also has some interesting numbers:
- Speed up to 8533 Mbps.
- Improved signal integrity with TX/RX equalization.
- Reliability improvements with a new adaptive refresh manager.
- Prefetch remains the same as LPDDR5 (16n).
In this case, Samsung has announced the first development of LPDDR5x in November 2021. And at the moment there are not too many that support this memory.
See Also: How RAM Memory Works
Micron announced that Mediatek had validated this new standard for their Dimensity 9000 5G SoCs, which is fantastic news.
And then? DDR6 in sight
GDDR6 memories are already being used in graphics cards and for rest of the components, DDR4 is still sufficient, and times to time, DDR5 will replace it.
There are still a few years until a new replacement arrives, but it seems that Samsung already has plans for the new DDR6 to launch in 2024 (previously they had put the date 2029).
A date on which we hope there will be no supply problems like the current ones, since this shortage chip is lasting too long, and many suggest that in 2023 it will continue to exist.
Also, there have been shortages in the semi-conductor industry, but this time it is more serious and lasting.
Continuing with the DDR6, to say that this new memory aims very high, although we will see until that date there are no alternative solutions.
According to the figures that the South Korean company has given, it could obtain a speed from 12.8 to 17 Ghz maximum.
These are already really spectacular figures, but there is another equally interesting fact, such as the transfer rate can be achieved by each channel.
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In other sense, we have 100 GB/s for each memory channel for a single module. Therefore, if we have a Dual-Channel it would rise to 200 GB/s, and with a Quad-Channel up to 400 GB/s.
A real bestiality compared to the current ones, but surely if the processing units continue to progress like this, all that and more will be needed by those dates.
To give you an idea, the DDR4-3000 can reach 25.6 GB/s per channel, and the new DDR5-6400 could double that number about 51.2 GB/s per channel.
Therefore, in DDR6, if the forecasts are met, the bandwidth would double again. For now, no more data or figures are known regarding the prices that memory could have.
Everything will depend to some extent on the situation of the industry at the time of launching this new RAM memory. Don’t forget to mention your thoughts in a comment section below.
Zahid Khan Jadoon is an Interior Decorator, Designer and a specialized Chef and loves to write about home appliances and food. Right now he is running his interior designing business along with a managing a restaurant. Also in his spare time he loves to write about home and kitchen appliances.