Your RAM’s about to get an upgrade. Samsung has announced the world’s first 10-nanometre 8-gigabit DRAM chips, and it promises that they will be 30 per cent faster and 20 per cent more efficient than what went before.
The new memory chips use a much smaller 10-nanometre manufacturing technique than the 20-nanometre version that Samsung’s been using since 2014. That allows it to create circuitry in its memory chips with features that measure just 10-nanometres in size, allowing it to squeeze more onto the same piece of silicon.
And that means improvements in speed and efficiency. Samsung claims its new chips will transfer data at up to 3200 megabits per second (30 per cent faster than the 2400Mbps that its old 20-nanometre chips managed) while also using 10 to 20 per cent less power.
Samsung will package up the 8-gigabit modules into RAM chips for computers at first — from 4GB offerings for laptops, up to 128GB slabs for servers. They will be available in the coming months, while chips for smartphones are set to appear later in the year.
[Samsung]
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