Flagship smartphones in the future will most likely come with AI features as well as 5G connectivity. These advanced features come at a cost though — phones with 5G and AI will need faster memory to take advantage of the said features. With this in mind, Samsung announced that it has begun mass producing the industry’s first 12-gigabit (Gb) LPDDR5 mobile DRAM.
“With mass production of the 12Gb LPDDR5 built on Samsung’s latest second-generation 10-nanometer (nm) class process, we are thrilled to be supporting the timely launch of 5G flagship smartphones for our customers worldwide,” said Jung-bae Lee, executive vice president of DRAM Product & Technology, Samsung Electronics. “Samsung remains committed to rapidly introducing next-generation mobile memory technologies that deliver greater performance and higher capacity, as we continue to aggressively drive growth of the premium memory market.”
So what exactly is 12Gb LPDDR5 mobile DRAM? This type of DRAM is 1.3x faster than the previous mobile memory standard, with a data rate of 5,500 mebatibs per second (compared to only 4,266Mb/s of LPDDR4X). In the GB package, the LPDDR5 is able to transfer 44GB of data, or about 12 full-HD (3.7GB-sized) movies, in only a second. Plus, the this DRAM is also more power-efficient than its predecessor.
Basically, it’s faster and more efficient memory for smartphones that’s optimized to fully take advantage of 5G and AI features. This makes LPDDR5 mobile DRAM the perfect choice for future flagship devices.
Following its introduction of the 12Gb LPDDR5 mobile DRAM, Samsung also expects to also develop a 16Gb LPDDR5 next year, to solidify its competitive edge in the global memory market.