Samsung Electronics announced on the 1st that it has developed the semiconductor industry’s first 12nm (nanometer, 1nm is 1 billionth of a meter) 32Gb (gigabit) DDR5 DRAM. 32Gb is the largest capacity ever for a single DRAM chip. It is evaluated that Samsung has become one step ahead in the high-performance and high-efficiency memory chip market, which is rapidly expanding due to the spread of advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and autonomous driving .
Samsung Electronics has once again confirmed its gap as the world’s No. 1 memory company with the development of 32Gb DDR5 DRAM. Samsung Electronics was the first in Korea to develop 64Kb (kilobit) DRAM in 1983. In just 40 years, DRAM capacity has increased by 500,000 times.
Samsung Electronics’ goal is to mass produce 32Gb DRAM within the year. The second and third largest DRAM competitors, SK Hynix and Micron of the United States, are currently producing 16Gb or 24Gb DDR5 DRAM. They are planning mass production 스포츠토토of 32Gb products for next year.
An industry insider explained, “Products based on 32Gb DRAM, such as Intel’s central processing unit ( CPU ), are scheduled to be released in earnest starting next year, so memory companies are also quickly preparing high-performance chips.”
DDR5Analysis shows that memory module efficiency has improved dramatically as DRAM has risen to the 32Gb level. To create a high-capacity 128GB (gigabyte, 1B is 8b) module suitable for high-end (ultra-high performance) servers, 64 existing 16Gb DRAMs were needed. However, you only need to insert 32 32Gb DRAMs. If the number of required semiconductors is reduced by half, the competitiveness of packaging in module form will increase in production speed and scale. Samsung said, “Based on the same 128GB module, 32Gb DRAM improves power consumption by about 10% compared to 16Gb DRAM,” and added, “It will be the optimal solution for information technology (IT) companies that value power efficiency, such as data centers . ” emphasized.
Samsung, which is struggling due to the decline in the semiconductor economy, is also expecting improvements in production efficiency through the development of this 32Gb product. When making a 128GB module with 32Gb DRAM, there is no need to use a cutting-edge process called TSV (through silicon electrode). TSV is also an essential process for high bandwidth memory ( HBM ) , which is emerging as the next generation DRAM . In other words, it appears that the facilities used to produce DDR5 DRAM can be diverted to HBM , where demand is increasing significantly. A Samsung official said, “So far, limited TSV facilities have been shared between high-capacity DRAM modules and HBM, but we will now be able to devote more resources to HBM in the future.” In a conference call after announcing its second quarter (April to June) performance, Samsung Electronics predicted that demand for HBM will grow at an average annual rate of 30% over the next five years.
Samsung Electronics plans to target the HBM 4th generation ( HBM3 ) market , which is competing with SK Hynix, in earnest from the fourth quarter (October to December). Citi Securities said in a report on the 31st of last month, “Samsung Electronics provides HBM3 to key customers, including NVIDIA.“Samsung Electronics will become one of the major suppliers of HBM3 within next year,” he said. It is reported that Samsung Electronics plans to send HBM3 samples to customers during the second quarter to conduct quality tests and complete the verification process by the end of September.
