Samsung debuts mobile DRAM chips

KOREAN MEMORY MAKER Samsung has announced faster DRAM chips designed for tablets and smartphones.

Samsung unveiled details of its DRAM chips yesterday. The company claimed the new 30nm class memory is as fast as PC DRAM, with a data transfer rate of up to 1066Mbps on its 4Gb LPDDR2 module.

That is double previous DRAM speeds in mobile devices like tablets and smartphones. Samsung reckoned that most smartphone memory has a data transfer rate of 333Mbps with top speeds hitting up to 400Mbps. Its new DRAM chips also require less power to run.

"The mobile device market is gaining momentum with the advent of tablet PCs, which is adding significantly to the already surging smartphone segment," said Jun-Young Jeon, VP of the memory product planning team at Samsung Electronics.

"Samsung will work closely with mobile device designers to bring high-performance, high-density mobile solutions to market as rapidly as possible."

The company is working on 8Gb densities with two 4Gb chips stacked inside and believes that will be mainstream fodder for the mobile market this time next year. Previously Samsung developed a 2Gb LPDDR2 DRAM chip earlier this year but that was done using the old manufacturing process and its other 8Gb module stacked four chips together.

Samsung can afford the 8Gb boosts because it has bundles of cash to spare on development and manufacturing. The INQUIRER recently reported that Samsung was the only top five DRAM vendor to see its sales grow last quarter. µ