Samsung is the first company to produce memory modules using the new LPDDR5X standard, offering a significant performance boost and reduction in power use.
The new 16Gb LPDDR5X modules are manufactured using a 14nm process and offer a maximum data rate of 8,533Mbps. That’s 33% faster than the 6,400Mbps LPDDR5 memory in use today. Add to that a 20% drop in power use, and you have faster memory for mobile devices that won’t drain the battery as fast. Samsung says the 16Gb DRAM can be packaged as 64GB memory modules.
SangJoon Hwang, Senior Vice President and Head of the DRAM Design Team at Samsung Electronics, believes the new modules will be used “beyond smartphones.” He sees use cases for 5G, AI, servers, electric vehciles, and of course every executives favorite buzzword at the moment: the metaverse.
As to when we can expect to see LPDDR5X used in devices, Samsung says it will “begin collaborating with global chipset manufacturers” later this year, meaning we are left waiting until 2022. Perhaps a Samsung successor to the Galaxy S21 will be the first device to demonstrate how fast this new memory is. It’s also worth noting that both the Apple M1 Pro and M1 Max chips use LPDDR5, which all but guarantees that Apple’s next processor iterations will shift to using LPDDR5X next year.
