SK Hynix lists 16Gb DDR4 memory chips – allows 256GB DIMMs to be created

SK Hynix lists 16Gb DDR4 memory chips - allows 256GB DIMMs to be created

SK Hynix lists 16Gb DDR4 memory chips – allows 256GB DIMMs to be created

SK Hynix is one of the world’s largest memory manufacturers and as such are always looking for a way to innovate and surpass their competition. The company has revealed that they are now selling 16Gb DDR4 memory, chips that offer a two-fold increase in capacity over the company’s existing 8Gb memory dies.    

These new chips will allow larger memory DIMMs to be created without the need for die-stacking, allowing dual-rank DDR4 memory DIMMs with capacities of 64GB to be constructed. Today 64GB DIMMs are only available with die-stacked LRDDR4, which has several logical ranks in addition to physical memory ranks, adding a lot of extra latency when compared to standard DDR4. Then compared to equivalent LRDDR4 with 8Gb ICs, a 64G DDR4 DIMM with 16Gb ICs will offer lower levels of power consumption and lower memory latencies, which is great news for select memory workloads.   

SK Hynix’s new 16Gb memory dies will also be stackable using TSVs to create 32Gb and 64 Gb components, which could be used to develop 128GB and 256GB LRDDR4 memory DIMMs respectively. These high capacity DIMMs will not release anytime soon, as they will require additional levels of validation to be deemed suitable for use in servers.  

Later this year SK Hynix plans to release more 16Gb DDR4 memory options, delivering users higher memory speeds, though the draw of these new memory chips is undoubtedly their capacity. These chips allow more memory to be placed in restrictive form factors or for same memory capacities to be achieved with a smaller number of ICs, offering potential power savings per Gb of DRAM. 

  

SK Hynix lists 16Gb DDR4 memory chips - allows 256GB DIMMs to be created

 

SK Hynix has not revealed what manufacturing technologies the company has used to create these new high-capacity memory ICs, though these details are expected to be released in time. 

In the consumer market 16Gb memory ICs will help high capacity DDR4 systems to be created, especially in the small form factor mobile market. 16GB Thin and lite notebooks will soon be a lot easier to produce. 

You can join the discussion on SK Hynix’s 16Gb DDR4 memory ICs on the OC3D Forums.  Â