Date: 20/05/2012

20nm LPDDR2 DRAM chips are under production at Samsung

Samsung Electronics has begun producing the industry's first four gigabit (Gb), low power double-data-rate 2 (LPDDR2) memory chips using 20 nanometer (nm) process.

"Samsung began expanding the market for 4Gb DRAM last year with the first mass-produced 30nm-class DRAM, and now we are working on capturing most of the advanced memory market with our new 20nm-class 4Gb DRAM," said Wanhoon Hong, executive vice president, memory sales & marketing, Samsung Electronics. "In the second half of this year, we expect to strongly increase the portion of 20nm-class DRAM within our overall DRAM output to make the 4Gb DRAM line-up the mainstream product in DRAM production, and therefore keeping the leadership position in the premium market and strengthening our competitive edge."

Samsung said it can deliver 2-Gigabyte (GB) solutions that boast razor-thin thickness of 0.8 millimeters (mm) , which stack four 4Gb LPDDR2 chips in a single LPDDR2 package. This new package is approximately 20 percent thinner than 2GB packages that stack four 30nm-class 4Gb LPDDR2 chips. Also, the new 2GB package can process data at up to 1,066 megabits per second (Mbps), while spending the same amount of power as that of a previous 30nm-class 2GB package. Benefits of the new 20nm-class 4Gb LPDDR2 will help speed up the growth of the 4Gb DRAM market.

Samsung expects the newly introduced 20nm-class 4Gb LPDDR2 will rapidly replace 30nm-class 2Gb-based 1GB LPDDR2 that was in limited supply at the 0.8 mm thickness.

According to IHS iSuppli, shipments of 4Gb LPDDR2 will steadily increase, taking approximately 13 percent of total Mobile DRAM shipments in 2012, 49 percent in 2013 and 63 percent in 2014, with 4Gb Mobile DRAM Monolithic becoming the mainstream chip in the Mobile DRAM market around the end of 2013.