Samsung Begins Production of Industry's Smallest DDR5 DRAM

It's 14 nanometers and has more than twice the speed of DDR4

By
Stefanie Fogel
Stefanie Fogel
Stefanie Fogel
Writer, Editor, Commerce Producer
  • University of Central Florida
Stefanie Fogel has written about consumer technology since 2009. Her work has appeared on Variety, Engadget, Polygon, and many other online publications.
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Published on October 13, 2021 03:46PM EDT
Fact checked by
Rich Scherr
Rich Scherr
Fact checked by Rich Scherr
  • University of Maryland Baltimore County
Rich Scherr is a seasoned technology and financial journalist who spent nearly two decades as the editor of Potomac and Bay Area Tech Wire.
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Samsung is mass producing the industry's smallest DDR5 DRAM, the company announced on Tuesday.

The new 14nm EUV DDR5 DRAM is only 14 nanometers and sports five layers of extreme ultraviolet (EUV) technology. It can reach speeds of up to 7.2 gigabits per second, which is more than twice the speed of DDR4. Samsung also claims its new EUV tech gives the DDR5 DRAM the highest bit density, while increasing productivity by 20% and reducing power consumption by 20%.

Samsung's new 14nm EUV DDR5 DRAM

Samsung

EUV is becoming more and more important as DRAM keeps shrinking in size. It helps improve patterning accuracy, which is needed for higher performance and greater yields, Samsung said. The 14nm DDR5 DRAM's extreme miniaturization wasn't possible before using the conventional argon fluoride (ArF) production method, and the company hopes its new technology will help address the need for greater performance and capacity in fields like 5G and artificial intelligence.

Going forward, Samsung said it wants to create a 24Gb 14nm DRAM chip to help meet the demands of global IT systems. It also plans to expand its 14nm DDR5 portfolio to support data centers, supercomputers, and enterprise server applications.

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