Samsung starts mass manufacturing LPDDR5X memory, paving the way for mobile devices with...

[nanoguy]

In brief: Companies like Apple have yet to adopt LPDDR5, which has only found its way into a handful of mobile devices so far. However, that won't stop Samsung from forging ahead with LPDDR5X memory, which is both faster and more energy efficient, and allows phone manufacturers to pack more RAM than ever into future mobile devices.

Back in August 2020, Samsung started mass producing 16 Gb LPDDR5 DRAM at the world’s largest semiconductor line, opening the possibility of cramming up to 16 gigabytes of RAM in devices like phones and tablets. The company has been making quick leaps in performance, power efficiency, and memory density over the last few years — with 8 Gb LPDDR5 chips in 2018, and 12 Gb chips in 2019.

This year, the South Korean tech giant is making yet another step in this journey with 16 Gb LPDDR5X DRAM, which is expected to be used in a variety of applications beyond smartphones. The new memory is 1.3 times faster than LPDDR5, meaning it is capable of data transfer speeds of up to 8.5 Gbps.

Samsung says its LPDDR5X chips are made using a 14 nm EUV process node and need 20 percent less power to operate when compared to LPDDR5 memory. But more importantly, the new 16 Gb LPDDR5X chip will allow mobile device manufacturers to pack up to 64 gigabytes per memory package.

We expect you’ll see the new memory debut in actual devices sometime in the first half of 2023, as many manufacturers (including Apple) have yet to adopt the existing LPDDR5 technology. In the meantime, Samsung says it will “begin collaborating with global chipset manufacturers to establish a more viable framework for the expanding world of digital reality, with its LPDDR5X serving as a key part of that foundation.”

In related news, Samsung’s Exynos account on Instagram dropped a teaser for an upcoming Exynos chipset. The new mobile SoC will be unveiled on November 19, and while some expect it will be the Exynos 2200 with an AMD GPU, the timing suggests we’ll likely see a mid-range chipset instead.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/92143-samsung-starts-mass-manufacturing-lpddr5x-memory-paving-way.html

 

[Sausagemeat]

Such an absurd amount of RAM for a phone. My 11 pro Max has 4GB and it smokes pretty much any android device.

 

[umbala]

Such an absurd amount of RAM for a phone. My 11 pro Max has 4GB and it smokes pretty much any android device.

Right, the amount of RAM is what "smokes" the competition. *roll eyes*

 

[QuantumPhysics]

Short of editing 4K video on the phone and finalizing 4K60fps videos, I have no idea what you'd need that amount of RAM in a phone for...

 

[QuantumPhysics]

Such an absurd amount of RAM for a phone. My 11 pro Max has 4GB and it smokes pretty much any android device.

When you multitask, you run out of memory quick I guess.

 

[Sausagemeat]

When you multitask, you run out of memory quick I guess.

Android has to keep all its applications loaded into active memory, it can’t “page” applications in storage so it needs tonnes of RAM if you want to keep lots of applications open. Apple has an algorithm that pages apps to the built in storage which usually has a fast memory controller to help. The way this works is one of Apples closest secrets and means they don’t need to buy as much RAM for their phones.

Of course, how much multi tasking do you need on a phone? It’s only got a tiny screen!

 

[Sausagemeat]

Right, the amount of RAM is what "smokes" the competition. *roll eyes*

Apples far superior processors and operating design is why it’s so much faster than competing Android devices.

My point was aimed at the fact that Android has really poor memory management. Obviously this flew right over your head. *rolls eyes*.

 

[Xex360]

Apples far superior processors and operating design is why it’s so much faster than competing Android devices.

My point was aimed at the fact that Android has really poor memory management. Obviously this flew right over your head. *rolls eyes*.

Apple's SOC is great but let down by the rest of the hardware and the software, unfortunately Android and a lot of phone makers are following in Apple's footsteps.

 

[Sausagemeat]

Apple's SOC is great but let down by the rest of the hardware and the software, unfortunately Android and a lot of phone makers are following in Apple's footsteps.

Not sure what you’re on about. Apples software is miles ahead of Android. Android is awful, it’s full of malware and app compatibility between devices is patchy at best. Android software barely gets updated for more than 2 years, with most manufacturers abandoning their customers after about one year. Apple on the other hand will keep your device relevant for 5-6+ years.

As for hardware, I mean they are all just glass slabs with OLED screens. iPhones have the best cameras on average but there are some Android devices that can offer better image quality in some areas.

 

[Scshadow]

Its sad that 4GB has become barely usable these days. My backup phone has 4GB of RAM and its budget processor is in general fast enough to run apps but it task kills like crazy on 4GB of RAM. 6GB is my personal minimum and 4GB is my absolute minimum recommendation for general use scenarios.

 

[kiwigraeme]

Not sure what you’re on about. Apples software is miles ahead of Android. Android is awful, it’s full of malware and app compatibility between devices is patchy at best. Android software barely gets updated for more than 2 years, with most manufacturers abandoning their customers after about one year. Apple on the other hand will keep your device relevant for 5-6+ years.

As for hardware, I mean they are all just glass slabs with OLED screens. iPhones have the best cameras on average but there are some Android devices that can offer better image quality in some areas.

"most manufacturers abandoning their customers after about one year."

can you list them ? is it the big ones Samsung , Xiamei - please inform us .

I very happy with my google phone it's much much smarter than an Apple phone .

I can ask it what is that - pointed it at my dogs the other day - which are mainly Jack Russel with a some cross - didn't get the cross perfectly - but was real impressed - as good a guess as say another dog owner.
I can speak in real time with someone in a different language .
It understands my voice - Apple not so good away from North America - and is more stupid on questions . No apple user has ever beaten my older phone in asking questions in real language .

You know once a phone is unsupported - if reasonably popular - you can install lineage os or whatever it's called - can you do that easily with an iphone?

Can you buy a perfectly acceptable brand new iphone for $150 - you can easily do that with android
I'm tired of people thinking that just because they have no problem buying an iphone - they can rubbish other phones and effectively belittle those or in the least forget about all the people struggling in the world.

If Apple Corp can't milk people for lots of money - it does not care about them - will offer no solution .
If could easily make a great $150 basic phone for people - but if won't as it does care or want to be associated with the average person in the world.

Yes the average person can not afford an iphone

 

[Hardware Geek]

This kind of memory density and newer processors might finally be able to get docked and run a full rival to a basic desktop pc. I would love to see Google embrace a concept like this with Android and offer a high end pixel that will run full fledged desktop apps in a docked configuration.

 

[Watzupken]

Short of editing 4K video on the phone and finalizing 4K60fps videos, I have no idea what you'd need that amount of RAM in a phone for...

You don't have an idea because there is no such need for massive amounts of memory on a mobile OS. The push for more and more RAM each year is because every manufacturer wants to outdo each other by coming up with more of everything, since consumers' perception is that the higher the number, the better it is. I have Android devices that have 6 and 8GB of ram and it runs well. By throwing more redundant ram to compete, it brings intangible improvement, and it also encourages software developers to waste it by not properly optimising their software.

 

[Watzupken]

"most manufacturers abandoning their customers after about one year."

can you list them ? is it the big ones Samsung , Xiamei - please inform us .

I very happy with my google phone it's much much smarter than an Apple phone .

I can ask it what is that - pointed it at my dogs the other day - which are mainly Jack Russel with a some cross - didn't get the cross perfectly - but was real impressed - as good a guess as say another dog owner.
I can speak in real time with someone in a different language .
It understands my voice - Apple not so good away from North America - and is more stupid on questions . No apple user has ever beaten my older phone in asking questions in real language .

You know once a phone is unsupported - if reasonably popular - you can install lineage os or whatever it's called - can you do that easily with an iphone?

Can you buy a perfectly acceptable brand new iphone for $150 - you can easily do that with android
I'm tired of people thinking that just because they have no problem buying an iphone - they can rubbish other phones and effectively belittle those or in the least forget about all the people struggling in the world.

If Apple Corp can't milk people for lots of money - it does not care about them - will offer no solution .
If could easily make a great $150 basic phone for people - but if won't as it does care or want to be associated with the average person in the world.

Yes the average person can not afford an iphone

I'll be perfectly honest, there are no companies that care about consumers. They care about consumers buying their product, they care about profit.

If you are comparing who provides the longest OS /update support historically, that's Apple. And this is consistent across the entire Apple iPhone range, from the SE all the way up to the flagship. On the contrary, if you get a mid range phone, you tend to get very limited support. So in short, what you pay is what you get. Google bucks the trend here somewhat offering a decent OS/ update support even on their mid range phones, but the caveat being that you tend to get a lower end SOC/ hardware. Even for mid range SOCs, Google tends to pick the lower end of the mid range SOCs to power their Pixel phones. You may install an alternative OS on an Android phone, but how many people are actually savvy enough to try it assuming the phone is not boot locked?

If you are looking for a "smarter" phone, I am not sure what is your definition of smart. Every phone is pretty much the same to me, whether its running Android or iOS. The supposed AI cores supports the device in some way or another. The voice recognition is not something that is build on the phone if I am not mistaken, but rather a Google service. So you should ideally be able to do the same on other Android phones.

 

[Watzupken]

This kind of memory density and newer processors might finally be able to get docked and run a full rival to a basic desktop pc. I would love to see Google embrace a concept like this with Android and offer a high end pixel that will run full fledged desktop apps in a docked configuration.

Even if so, I don't think there is a need to spam memory here. At least I don't think it is required in the near future. As you mentioned, if I were to dock the system and use it as a basic desktop PC, I think the key word here is basic. SOCs are getting more powerful and even current gen ones are very powerful. Problem is the form factor is limiting the cooling capability, which will cause the SOCs to throttle hard. Physically, you just can't squeeze in a fan or beefier heatsink. Whatever water cooling solution that Xiaomi showcased recently, it helps with heat transfer, but does not solve the problem of limited surface area and heat dissipation. Eventually under sustained load, the heat spread is going to be soaked with heat but slow to expel it out of the phone chassis which is unfortunately sealed tight for water proofing. So if we are limited in terms of what software we can run on a phone, then there is no need for so much RAM as we do on a full fledge laptop/ desktop.

 

[Yenega]

Such an absurd amount of RAM for a phone. My 11 pro Max has 4GB and it smokes pretty much any android device.

Android need tons of RAM because of poor optimization and coding in general. Supporting 1000s of different devices is always harder, this is just a fact and that is why most apps are wonky with tons of bugs and issues that almost never get fixed. I'm using Android for Work and iPhone for myself, so I know for a fact that iPhone simply runs 99.9% of apps better with almost no bugs and if there is bugs, they will be fixed within days most of the time.

Most popular apps on iPhone smokes the Android counterpart in real world scenarios for this exact reason, however Apple SoCs are superior to Android SoCs too.

Seeing 12-16GB RAM on Android devices makes me cringe.. iPhones with 3-4GB smoke them anyway in terms of speed, for example in video encoding.

It's like console vs PC gaming. A console game is most often tweaked to perfection, because developers knows exactly which specs they are targetting. Same with Apple devices and this is why Apple needs much less ressources to perform the same or simply beat Android.

However Apple SoCs are 1-2 if not 3 generations ahead of even the best Android SoCs. Apple's uses the best process possible and has a superior design (Thank you Jim Keller)

 

[Sausagemeat]

"most manufacturers abandoning their customers after about one year."

can you list them ? is it the big ones Samsung , Xiamei - please inform us .

I very happy with my google phone it's much much smarter than an Apple phone .

I can ask it what is that - pointed it at my dogs the other day - which are mainly Jack Russel with a some cross - didn't get the cross perfectly - but was real impressed - as good a guess as say another dog owner.
I can speak in real time with someone in a different language .
It understands my voice - Apple not so good away from North America - and is more stupid on questions . No apple user has ever beaten my older phone in asking questions in real language .

You know once a phone is unsupported - if reasonably popular - you can install lineage os or whatever it's called - can you do that easily with an iphone?

Can you buy a perfectly acceptable brand new iphone for $150 - you can easily do that with android
I'm tired of people thinking that just because they have no problem buying an iphone - they can rubbish other phones and effectively belittle those or in the least forget about all the people struggling in the world.

If Apple Corp can't milk people for lots of money - it does not care about them - will offer no solution .
If could easily make a great $150 basic phone for people - but if won't as it does care or want to be associated with the average person in the world.

Yes the average person can not afford an iphone

Your Google phone is not smarter than an Apple phone. In fact the opposite, it’s a lot slower and technically benchmarks in AI tests a lot slower than iPhone equivalents. Lol.

I can’t be bothered to go look up exactly how long Android smartphone manufacturers support their products for. But I can assure you, its a far shorter time than Apple support their products. Prove me wrong if you think otherwise.

Also I prefer Siri to Google now. Google now can answer more questions for sure but it doesn’t seamlessly integrate with your home automation. I know which I find more useful.

And I agree with you about the $150 Android device, they are very capable and personally I think you’d be a fool to spend more than that on any Android device. They definitely have the ultra budget market covered well.

I am absolutely entitled to my opinion and belittling of Android devices. Clearly this has touched a nerve with you. Why? Why do you care that Apple users dont like Android devices?

Oh and the average Brit, American or any citizen of a developed nation can afford an iPhone. You can buy 2 year old second hand iPhones for very cheap and in most cases they will be faster and supported longer than a new Android device for the same money.

I can’t stand Android and I will continue to voice my opinion. Don’t like it? Block me.