Samsung starts mass production of advanced 12nm DDR5 DRAM

Samsung said on Thursday that it has begun mass production of its double data rate 5 (DDR5) DRAM made with a 12-nanometer (nm) class process node. The tech giant announced the development of the 16Gb DDR5 DRAM in December last year.

The start of the mass production of the 12nm DRAM, which makes it the most advanced among DRAMs available, at a time when the memory chip industry is going through a downturn, shows that Samsung, the world’s largest memory chipmaker, intends to maintain its leadership in the sector and more.

According to Samsung, the new chip, compared to the prior generation, has power consumption reduced by 23% while its wafer productivity was up by 20%, meaning 20% more chips can be produced out of a single wafer as the chip is smaller than the prior generation.

The tech giant said the reduced power consumption from the 16Gb DDR5 DRAM will allow server and data center operators to reduce their energy consumption and carbon footprint.

The chip also has a maximum speed of 7.2Gbps, which means it can process 60GB in around a second, and is aimed at data centers, AI and new computing applications.

The 12nm node was achieved thanks to Samsung’s use of a new high-k material that allows the chip to accurately distinguish differences in data signals.

The DRAM has been verified for compatibility with AMD in December already and Samsung said it was collaborating with more global IT companies at the current time.