Samsung, the world’s largest memory chip maker, has developed a 3rd-generation 10-nm-class (1z-nm) 8Gb (eight-gigabit) DDR4 DRAM, an industry-first product. The announcement comes just a week after the company started mass producing the world’s highest-capacity 12GB LPDDR4X RAM chip, another industry-first product.

Samsung plans to begin mass producing the new 8Gb DDR4 in the second half of this year. The company is targeting the next-generation enterprise servers and high-end PCs coming next year.

Samsung further pushes the limits of DRAM

The new 10nm DDR4 is the industry’s smallest memory process node. It has more than 20% higher manufacturing productivity compared to the previous 1y-nm version, and will push the limits of DRAM solutions with ultra-high performance and power efficiency. Also, the 3rd-gen DDR4 production uses no Extreme Ultra-Violet (EUV) processing, further pushing the limits of DRAM scaling.

Samsung expects the 1z-nm DDR4 to pave way for a speedy arrival of the next-generation DRAM interfaces such as DDR5, LPDDR5 and GDDR6. Interestingly, Samsung developed this 3rd-gen DDR4 just 16 months after it began mass producing the 2nd-gen 10-nm-class (1y-nm) 8Gb DDR4.

“Our commitment to break through the biggest challenges in technology has always driven us toward greater innovation. We are pleased to have laid the groundwork again for stable production of next-generation DRAM that ensures the highest performance and energy efficiency,” said Jung-bae Lee, executive vice president of DRAM product & technology, Samsung.

Samsung is well poised to respond to increasing market demands of DDR4 DRAM. The company will be “actively collaborating with global customers to deliver an array of upcoming memory solutions”. Samsung has already confirmed that it will launch a second memory plant in Pyeongtaek, South Korea next year.