Samsung has announced that it has developed the industry’s first LPDDR5X DRAM, which will replace the previous LPDDR5 standard. The previous standard made it possible to create 16GB memory solutions for smartphones capable of delivering 5.5Gbps of data. Other high-end devices, such as laptops based on Intel’s 12th generation Alder Lake-P mobile CPUs, can even support higher speeds of 6.4Gbps, which is Samsung’s fastest LPDDR5 memory currently capable of running.
The LPDDR5X will increase this speed to 8.5 Gbps by about 30%. While that’s a decent increase, it pales in comparison to the staggering four-fold increase in capacity brought by the LPDDR5X, which is speculated at 64GB. Samsung says it will likely be possible using 14nm 16Gb (2GB) LPDDR5X chips, which will likely be developed using some form of UFS-based Multi-chip package (uMCP) technology. Currently the company is using a UFS 3.1 based solution for LPDDR5, so it may be possible for next-gen UFS to be used for LPDDR5X.
This means that in the future high-end smartphones can carry 64GB of memory using LPDDR5 on gaming phones like the ASUS ROG Phone 5, which currently reaches 18GB. However, it may also be possible that 64GB capacities are reserved only for laptops or other high-end devices and applications. Even for the most heavy-duty multitasking and gaming smartphones, it can be predicted that the 64GB capability of the next generation will probably still be overkill.
Samsung itself seems to support this notion: “Our LPDDR5X will expand the use of high-performance, low-power memory beyond smartphones and bring new capabilities to AI-based edge applications such as servers and even cars.”
Besides speed and capacity improvements, the LPDDR5X also promises a 20% power efficiency increase compared to the LPDDR5 standard. . .
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