As 1z-nm becomes the industry’s smallest memory process node, Samsung is now primed to respond to increasing market demands with its new DDR4 DRAM that has more than 20-percent higher manufacturing productivity compared to the previous 1y-nm version.

Mass production of the 1z-nm 8Gb DDR4 will begin within the second half of this year to accommodate next-generation enterprise servers and high-end PCs expected to be launched in 2020.

“Our commitment to break through the biggest challenges in technology has always driven us toward greater innovation. We are pleased to have laid the groundwork again for stable production of next-generation DRAM that ensures the highest performance and energy efficiency,” said Jung-bae Lee, executive vice president of DRAM product & technology, Samsung Electronics. “As we build out our 1z-nm DRAM lineup, Samsung is aiming to support its global customers in their deployment of cutting-edge systems and enabling proliferation of the premium memory market.”

Samsung’s development of the 1z-nm DRAM paves the way for an accelerated global IT transition to next-generation DRAM interfaces such as DDR5, LPDDR5 and GDDR6 that will power a wave of future digital innovation. Subsequent 1z-nm products with higher capacities and performance will allow Samsung to strengthen its business competitiveness and solidify its leadership in the premium DRAM market for applications that include servers, graphics and mobile devices.

Following a full validation with a CPU manufacturer for eight-gigabyte (GB) DDR4 modules, Samsung will be actively collaborating with global customers to deliver an array of upcoming memory solutions.

In line with current industry needs, Samsung plans to increase the portion of its main memory production at its Pyeongtaek site, while working with its global IT clients to meet the rising demand for state-of-the-art DRAM products.

This breakthrough was made possible by combining 32 of the new 1TB NAND flash packages, each comprised of 16 stacked layers of 512Gb V-NAND chips. These super-dense 1TB packages allow for approximately 5,700 5-gigabyte (GB), full HD movie files to be stored within a mere 2.5-inch storage device.

In addition to the doubled capacity, performance levels have risen significantly and are nearly twice that of Samsung’s previous generation high-capacity SAS SSD. Based on a 12Gb/s SAS interface, the new PM1643 drive features random read and write speeds of up to 400,000 IOPS and 50,000 IOPS, and sequential read and write speeds of up to 2,100MB/s and 1,700 MB/s, respectively. These represent approximately four times the random read performance and three times the sequential read performance of a typical 2.5-inch SATA SSD*.

“With our launch of the 30.72TB SSD, we are once again shattering the enterprise storage capacity barrier, and in the process, opening up new horizons for ultra-high capacity storage systems worldwide,” said Jaesoo Han, executive vice president, Memory Sales & Marketing Team at Samsung Electronics. “Samsung will continue to move aggressively in meeting the shifting demand toward SSDs over 10TB and at the same time, accelerating adoption of our trail-blazing storage solutions in a new age of enterprise systems.”

Samsung reached the new capacity and performance enhancements through several technology progressions in the design of its controller, DRAM packaging and associated software. Included in these advancements is a highly efficient controller architecture that integrates nine controllers from the previous high-capacity SSD lineup into a single package, enabling a greater amount of space within the SSD to be used for storage. The PM1643 drive also applies Through Silicon Via (TSV) technology to interconnect 8Gb DDR4 chips, creating 10 4GB TSV DRAM packages, totaling 40GB of DRAM. This marks the first time that TSV-applied DRAM has been used in an SSD.

Complementing the SSD’s hardware ingenuity is enhanced software that supports metadata protection as well as data retention and recovery from sudden power failures, and an error correction code (ECC) algorithm to ensure high reliability and minimal storage maintenance. Furthermore, the SSD provides a robust endurance level of one full drive write per day (DWPD), which translates into writing 30.72TB of data every day over the five-year warranty period without failure. The PM1643 also offers a mean time between failures (MTBF) of two million hours.

Samsung started manufacturing initial quantities of the 30.72TB SSDs in January and plans to expand the lineup later this year – with 15.36TB, 7.68TB, 3.84TB, 1.92TB, 960GB and 800GB versions – to further drive the growth of all-flash-arrays and accelerate the transition from hard disk drives (HDDs) to SSDs in the enterprise market. The wide range of models and much improved performance will be pivotal in meeting the growing storage needs in a host of market segments, including the government, financial services, healthcare, education, oil & gas, pharmaceutical, social media, business services, retail and communications sectors.

* Compared to 2.5-inch Samsung SSD 850 EVO

“By developing innovative technologies in DRAM circuit design and process, we have broken through what has been a major barrier for DRAM scalability,” said Gyoyoung Jin, president of Memory Business at Samsung Electronics. “Through a rapid ramp-up of the 2nd-generation 10nm-class DRAM, we will expand our overall 10nm-class DRAM production more aggressively, in order to accommodate strong market demand and continue to strengthen our business competitiveness.”

Samsung’s 2nd-generation 10nm-class 8Gb DDR4 features an approximate 30 percent productivity gain over the company’s 1st–generation 10nm-class 8Gb DDR4. In addition, the new 8Gb DDR4’s performance levels and energy efficiency have been improved about 10 and 15 percent respectively, thanks to the use of an advanced, proprietary circuit design technology. The new 8Gb DDR4 can operate at 3,600 megabits per second (Mbps) per pin, compared to 3,200 Mbps of the company’s 1x-nm 8Gb DDR4.

To enable these achievements, Samsung has applied new technologies, without the use of an EUV process. The innovation here includes use of a high-sensitivity cell data sensing system and a progressive “air spacer” scheme.

In the cells of Samsung’s 2nd-generation 10nm-class DRAM, a newly devised data sensing system enables a more accurate determination of the data stored in each cell, which leads to a significant increase in the level of circuit integration and manufacturing productivity.

The new 10nm-class DRAM also makes use of a unique air spacer that has been placed around its bit lines to dramatically decrease parasitic capacitance**. Use of the air spacer enables not only a higher level of scaling, but also rapid cell operation.

With these advancements, Samsung is now accelerating its plans for much faster introductions of next-generation DRAM chips and systems, including DDR5, HBM3, LPDDR5 and GDDR6, for use in enterprise servers, mobile devices, supercomputers, HPC systems and high-speed graphics cards.

Samsung has finished validating its 2nd-generation 10nm-class DDR4 modules with CPU manufacturers, and next plans to work closely with its global IT customers in the development of more efficient next-generation computing systems.

In addition, the world’s leading DRAM producer expects to not only rapidly increase the production volume of the 2nd-generation 10nm-class DRAM lineups, but also to manufacture more of its mainstream 1st-generation 10nm-class DRAM, which together will meet the growing demands for DRAM in premium electronic systems worldwide.

* Editors’ Note 1: 10nm-class denotes a process technology node somewhere between 10 and 19 nanometers. Samsung launched its first DRAM product based on a 10nm-class process in February, 2016.

** Editors’ Note 2: Parasitic capacitance is unwanted capacitance that exists between the parts of an electronic circuit or electronic part, because of their proximity to each other. When two electrical conductors at different voltages are too close together, they are adversely affected by each other’s electric field and store opposite electric charges such as those produced by a capacitor.