Tag Archives: 20nm

Samsung starts making 3GB low-power memory for smartphones

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Samsung starts making 3GB RAM chips for smartphones

We hope you weren't just getting used to having 2GB of RAM in a smartphone, because Samsung is already moving on. The company is now mass-producing 3GB LPDDR3 packages whose 0.8mm (0.03in) thickness can accommodate most device sizes. The capacious, 20nm-class memory should also be quick when there's a pair of symmetric channels to keep data flowing. The first smartphones with 3GB of RAM should ship in the second half of the year; Samsung isn't revealing which phones will have the honor, but it's not hard to make some educated guesses.

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SK Hynix teases 4GB LPDDR3 RAM for high-end mobiles due end of this year

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Samsung has already pressing ahead with its own high-density 20nm LPDDR3 modules, but SK Hynix reckons it can go one better. Instead of the stingy, piffling, retro 2GB stack offered by Sammy (pah!), the Korean memory specialist says it's sampling 20nm 8Gb (1GB) chips that can be stacked to provide 4GB of RAM in high-end mobile devices. This memory will come with all the trimmings and trappings of high-density LPDDR3, including a data transmission speed of 2,133Mbps (vs. 1,600Mbps offered by existing LPDDR3 phones like the GS4), a thinner profile and less power consumption in standby mode compared to LPDDR2. That just leaves the question of "when?," to which SK Hynix confusingly answers that we'll see products "noticeably loaded" with more than 2GB of LPDDR3 during the second half of this year, although it doesn't intend to start mass production of this exact chip until the end of the year. Of course, there'll come a point in 2014 when even mid-range processors like ARM's Cortex-A12 will theoretically be able to address more than 4GB, so that amount of RAM may not even seem so outlandish.

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Samsung starts production of 20nm 4Gb LPDDR3 mobile DRAM

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Samsung starts production of 20nm 4Gb LPDDR3 RAM, promises speed and performance boosts

What is it that you want to know about the RAM in your mobile device? Usually, how much of it there is, and if you're a little more demanding of your hardware, maybe what type it is, too. Well, folk in the latter category might interested to know that Samsung has started production of 20nm 4Gb LPDDR3 mobile DRAM. As is the nature of smaller, more efficient components, the new chips promise to be faster (2,133 Mbps per pin, over LPDDR2's 800 Mbps), and -- so claims Samsung -- a 20 percent drop in power consumption. With just four of these new chips, OEMs can have a 2GB offering that's still just a slick 0.8mm in height.

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Intel ships SSD 335 as its first drive with 20nm flash, asks just a little to stay cutting-edge

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Intel SSD 335

Don't panic, SSD 330 owners: your drive hasn't been immediately rendered obsolete. Intel's new SSD 335 is just the first shipping drive using the company's 20-nanometer flash memory. The shrink down from 25nm is primarily a technological showcase that proves the more scalable, hi-K/metal gate borrowed from processors can fly in NAND-based storage. Buyers will still get the same 500MB/s read speeds and 450MB/s writes in a 2.5-inch, SATA 6Gbps drive that will stuff neatly into many desktops and laptops. Intel is shy about pricing for the lone 240GB variant on offer, although a quick scan finds it selling for a slight premium over its ancestor, at $210. While that's still frugal in this day and age, we're guessing that Intel's vow to "pass along the savings" with the SSD 335 won't truly be realized without a reseller price drop or two.

Continue reading Intel ships SSD 335 as its first drive with 20nm flash, asks just a little to stay cutting-edge

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Intel ships SSD 335 as its first drive with 20nm flash, asks just a little to stay cutting-edge originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 30 Oct 2012 05:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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ARM and Globalfoundries hammer out deal to promote 20nm mobile chips

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ARM and Globalfoundries hammer out deal to promote 20nm mobile chips

Sure it's British, but ARM's mobile empire is being built through careful alliances rather than conquest. The chip designer's latest deal with Globalfoundries, which mirrors a very similar agreement signed with rival foundry TSMC last month, is a case in point. It's designed to promote the adoption of fast, energy-efficient 20nm processors by making it easy for chip makers (like Samsung, perhaps) to knock on Globalfoundries' door for the grunt work of actually fabricating the silicon -- since the foundry will now be prepped to produce precisely that type of chip. As far as the regular gadget buyer is concerned, all this politicking amounts to one thing: further reassurance that mobile processor shrinkage isn't going to peter out after the new 32nm Exynos chips or the 28nm Snapdragon S4 -- it's going to push on past the 22nm benchmark that Ivy Bridge already established in the desktop sphere and hopefully deliver phones and tablets that do more with less juice.

Continue reading ARM and Globalfoundries hammer out deal to promote 20nm mobile chips

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ARM and Globalfoundries hammer out deal to promote 20nm mobile chips originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 13 Aug 2012 10:16:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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ARM and Globalfoundries hammer out deal to promote 20nm mobile chips

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ARM and Globalfoundries hammer out deal to promote 20nm mobile chips

Sure it's British, but ARM's mobile empire is being built through careful alliances rather than conquest. The chip designer's latest deal with Globalfoundries, which mirrors a very similar agreement signed with rival foundry TSMC last month, is a case in point. It's designed to promote the adoption of fast, energy-efficient 20nm processors by making it easy for chip makers (like Samsung, perhaps) to knock on Globalfoundries' door for the grunt work of actually fabricating the silicon -- since the foundry will now be prepped to produce precisely that type of chip. As far as the regular gadget buyer is concerned, all this politicking amounts to one thing: further reassurance that mobile processor shrinkage isn't going to peter out after the new 32nm Exynos chips or the 28nm Snapdragon S4 -- it's going to push on past the 22nm benchmark that Ivy Bridge already established in the desktop sphere and hopefully deliver phones and tablets that do more with less juice.

Continue reading ARM and Globalfoundries hammer out deal to promote 20nm mobile chips

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ARM and Globalfoundries hammer out deal to promote 20nm mobile chips originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 13 Aug 2012 10:16:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Samsung starts mass-producing 4x faster mobile flash memory, kickstarts our phones and tablets

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Samsung starts massproducing 4x faster mobile flash memory, kickstarts our phones and tablets

Samsung isn't content to leave fast NAND flash memory to traditional solid-state drives. Its Pro Class 1500 promises a big jolt to the performance of frequently pokey smartphone and tablet storage. By how much? That name is a clue -- it reaches 1,500 IOPS (inputs/outputs per second) when writing data, which along with 3,500 IOPS data reads is about four times faster than any previous embedded flash chip Samsung has tested. In the real world, that leads to as much as 140MB/s when reading data and 50MB/s for writes. The speed comes after Samsung has thrown virtually every trick in the book at its new chips, including a dense 20-nanometer manufacturing process, quick toggle DDR 2.0 memory with its own controller and a new JEDEC memory standard with 200MB/s of bandwidth to spare. Samsung hasn't named customers for the 16GB, 32GB and 64GB parts that are rolling out of the factories, although we'd do well to remember that a flourishing phone business doesn't guarantee that the only major customer is Samsung itself: even in the face of legal challenges, Samsung still has at least one noteworthy client that tends to snap up much of its flash supply.

Continue reading Samsung starts mass-producing 4x faster mobile flash memory, kickstarts our phones and tablets

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Samsung starts mass-producing 4x faster mobile flash memory, kickstarts our phones and tablets originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 02 Aug 2012 01:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Samsung ready to invest in next-gen chip production: here comes 20nm and even 14nm

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Samsung ready to invest in nextgen chip production here comes 20nm and even 14nmAs things stand, the super-small and super-efficient 22 nanometer transistors in Intels' Ivy Bridge are about as cutting edge as mainstream chip production gets, which is why this promise from Samsung is rather impressive. As reported by Reuters, the Korean manufacturer is preparing to invest $1.9 billion in a new logic chip line that will make chips for smartphones and processors. These chips will use 20nm and 14nm fabrication processes, making them potentially faster and more efficient than Ivy Bridge -- and leaving the silicon currently found in Sammy's 32nm Exynos Quad and Qualcomm's 28nm Snapdragon S4 far behind. Of course, Intel is gearing up for 14nm production next year too, and even setting its sights on 5nm after 2015, so the coming battle for Moore's Law should be just as lively as it is today.

[Silicon wafer photo via Shutterstock]

Continue reading Samsung ready to invest in next-gen chip production: here comes 20nm and even 14nm

Samsung ready to invest in next-gen chip production: here comes 20nm and even 14nm originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 07 Jun 2012 03:14:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Samsung mass-produces 4-gigabit LPDDR2 memory, aims to make 2GB a common sight in smartphones

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Samsung started making 2GB low-power mobile memory last year, but as the 1GB-equipped phone you likely have in your hand shows, the chips weren't built on a wide-enough scale to get much use. The Korean company is hoping to fix that now that it's mass-producing 20-nanometer, 4-gigabit LPDDR2 RAM. Going to a smaller process than the 30-nanometer chips of old will not just slim the memory down by a fifth, helping your smartphone stay skinny: it should help 2GB of RAM become the "mainstream product" by the end of 2013, if Samsung gets its way. New chips should run at 1,066Mbps without chewing up any more power than the earlier parts, too, so there's no penalty for using the denser parts. It's hard to say whether or not the 20nm design is what's leading to the 2GB of RAM in the Japanese Galaxy S III; we just know that the upgraded NTT DoCoMo phone is now just the start of a rapidly approaching trend for smartphones and tablets.

Continue reading Samsung mass-produces 4-gigabit LPDDR2 memory, aims to make 2GB a common sight in smartphones

Samsung mass-produces 4-gigabit LPDDR2 memory, aims to make 2GB a common sight in smartphones originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 17 May 2012 12:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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