Samsung develops mobile DRAM with wide I/O interface

SEOUL, KOREA: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd announced the development of 1 gigabit (Gb) mobile DRAM with a wide I/O interface, using 50 nanometer class* process technology. The new wide I/O mobile DRAM will be used in mobile applications, such as smartphones and tablet PCs.

“Following the development of 4Gb LPDDR2 DRAM (low-power DDR2 dynamic random access memory) last year, our new mobile DRAM solution with a wide I/O interface represents a significant contribution to the advancement of high-performance mobile products,” said Byungse So, senior vice president, memory product planning & application engineering at Samsung Electronics. “We will continue to aggressively expand our high-performance mobile memory product line to further propel the growth of the mobile industry.”

The new 1Gb wide I/O mobile DRAM can transmit data at 12.8 gigabyte (GB) per second, which increases the bandwidth of mobile DDR DRAM (1.6GB/s) eightfold, while reducing power consumption by approximately 87 percent. The bandwidth is also four times that of LPDDR2 DRAM (which is approximately 3.2GB/s).

To boost data transmission, Samsung’s wide I/O DRAM uses 512 pins for data input and output compared to the previous generation of mobile DRAMs, which used a maximum of 32 pins. If you include the pins that are involved in sending commands and regulating power supply, a single Samsung wide I/O DRAM is designed to accommodate approximately 1,200 pins.

Following this wide I/O DRAM launch, Samsung is aiming to provide 20nm-class 4Gb wide I/O mobile DRAM sometime in 2013. The company’s recent achievements in mobile DRAM include introducing the first 50nm-class 1Gb LPDDR2 DRAM in 2009 and the first 40nm-class* 2Gb LPDDR2 in 2010.