Samsung Electronics has announced the development of 1Gb mobile DRAM with a wide I/O interface, using 50nm-class process technology. The new wide I/O mobile DRAM will be used in mobile applications, such as smartphones and tablet PCs.
Samsung said the new wide I/O mobile 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," Samsung pointed out.
The new Samsung 1Gb mobile DRAM can transmit data at 12.8GB per second, which increases the bandwidth of mobile DDR DRAM (1.6GB/s) eightfold while reducing power consumption by approximately 87%. The bandwidth is also four times that of LPDDR2 DRAM (which is approximately 3.2GB/s).
In addition, Samsung is aiming to provide 20nm-class 4Gb wide I/O mobile DRAM sometime in 2013. The company revealed its 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.
Samsung will present a paper related to wide I/O DRAM technology at the 2011 International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) being held from February 20 to 24 in San Francisco.
Citing iSuppli, Samsung expects mobile DRAM to account for 16.5% of total annual DRAM shipments worldwide in 2014, up from about 11.1% in 2010.