Samsung Electronics, the world leader in advanced memory technology, today announced that it has begun mass producing the highest-capacity mobile DRAM – the industry’s first 12-gigabyte (GB) low-power double data rate 4X (LPDDR4X) package – optimized for tomorrow’s premium smartphones. Featuring higher capacity than most ultra-thin notebooks, the new mobile DRAM will enable smartphone users to take full advantage of all the features in next-generation smartphones.

“With mass production of the new LPDDR4X, Samsung is now providing a comprehensive lineup of advanced memory to power the new era of smartphones, from 12GB mobile DRAM to 512GB eUFS 3.0 storage,” said Sewon Chun, executive vice president of Memory Marketing at Samsung Electronics. “Moreover, with the LPDDR4X, we’re strengthening our position as the premium mobile memory maker best positioned to accommodate rapidly growing demand from global smartphone manufacturers.”

Thanks to the 12GB mobile DRAM, smartphone makers can maximize the potential of devices that feature more than five cameras and ever-increasing display sizes as well as artificial intelligence and 5G capabilities. For smartphone users, the 12GB DRAM enables more fluid multitasking and faster searches as they navigate through a myriad of apps on ultra-large high-resolution screens. Also, the 1.1-millimeter thickness allows for even sleeker smartphone designs.

The 12GB capacity was achieved by combining six 16-gigabit (Gb) LPDDR4X chips based on the second-generation 10nm-class (1y-nm) process into a single package, providing more space for the smartphone battery. In addition, by using the company’s 1y-nm technology, the new 12GB mobile memory delivers a data transfer rate of 34.1GB per second while minimizing the increase in power consumption inevitably caused by a boost in DRAM capacity.

Since introducing 1GB mobile DRAM in 2011, Samsung continues to drive capacity breakthroughs in the mobile DRAM market, moving from 6GB (in 2015) and 8GB (2016) to today’s first 12GB LPDDR4X. From its cutting-edge memory line in Pyeongtaek, Korea, Samsung plans to more than triple the supply of its 1y-nm-based 8GB and 12GB mobile DRAM during the second half of 2019 to meet the anticipated high demand.

[Reference] Samsung Mobile DRAM Timeline: Production/Mass Prod.

Samsung plans to launch a 1-Terabyte version 
within the second half of the year

Samsung Electronics the world leader in advanced memory technology, today announced that it has begun mass producing the industry’s first 512-gigabyte (GB) embedded Universal Flash Storage (eUFS) 3.0 for next-generation mobile devices. In line with the latest eUFS 3.0 specification, the new Samsung memory delivers twice the speed of the previous eUFS storage (eUFS 2.1), allowing mobile memory to support seamless user experiences in future smartphones with ultra-large high-resolution screens.

“Beginning mass production of our eUFS 3.0 lineup gives us a great advantage in the next-generation mobile market to which we are bringing a memory read speed that was before only available on ultra-slim laptops,” said Cheol Choi, executive vice president of Memory Sales & Marketing at Samsung Electronics. “As we expand our eUFS 3.0 offerings, including a 1-Terabyte (TB) version later this year, we expect to play a major role in accelerating momentum within the premium mobile market.”

Samsung produced the industry-first UFS interface with eUFS 2.0 in January, 2015, which was 1.4 times faster than the mobile memory standard at that time, referred to as the embedded multi-media card (eMMC) 5.1. In just four years, the company’s newest eUFS 3.0 matches the performance of today’s ultra-slim notebooks.

Samsung’s 512GB eUFS 3.0 stacks eight of the company’s fifth-generation 512-gigabit (Gb) V-NAND die and integrates a high-performance controller. At 2,100 megabytes-per-second (MB/s), the new eUFS doubles the sequential read rate of Samsung’s latest eUFS memory (eUFS 2.1) which was announced in January. The new solution’s blazing read speed is four times faster than that of a SATA solid state drive (SSDs) and 20 times faster than a typical microSD card, allowing premium smartphones to transfer a Full HD movie to a PC in about three seconds*. In addition, the sequential write speed also has been improved by 50 percent to 410MB/s, which is equivalent to that of a SATA SSD.

The new memory’s random read and write speeds provide up to a 36-percent increase over the current eUFS 2.1 industry specification, at 63,000 and 68,000 Input/Output Operations Per Second (IOPS), respectively. With the significant gains in random read and writes that are more than 630 times faster than general microSD cards (100 IOPS), a number of complex applications can be simultaneously run, while achieving enhanced responsiveness, especially on the newest generation of mobile devices.

Following the 512GB eUFS 3.0 as well as a 128GB version that are both launching this month, Samsung plans to produce 1TB and 256GB models in the second half of the year, to further help global device manufacturers in better delivering tomorrow’s mobile innovations.

*The calculation is based on transferring a 3.7GB full HD movie file from a mobile device with the 512GB eUFS 3.0 to a PC with a non-volatile memory express (NVMe) interface SSD.

※ Reference: Comparison of Samsung’s internal memory performance