• HBM3 should come in 2019 at the earliest
  
• HBM2 has had issues with yield, which could get worse with HBM3 due to greater complexity
  
• DDR5 should come in 2020
  

Quote:GamersNexus recently received tips from a highly credible source that works at a major memory supplier. We got enough to write several stories, but we’ll start with this one:

Our present understanding is that AMD is working with at least one memory supplier to establish an on-site R&D lab at the company’s Austin campus, which is being used to research DDR5 and develop the next generation of memory. AMD is trying to beat Intel to market with DDR5, which fits the company’s history of pushing new memory standards earlier. ATi also did this with older revisions of GDDR memory.

Separately, we also learned that AMD is working on what they call “Near Memory,” or HBM being used in conjunction with future CPU components. We’re not clear presently on whether that includes desktop CPUs, but we do know that HBM for CPUs is in active R&D, and given Hades Canyon, that’s not necessarily a big surprise.

Quote:Cadence and Micron have joined forces to build the world's first working DDR5-4400 memory module. Cadence provided their DDR5 memory controller and PHY for the prototype while Micron produced the 8 Gb chips, which were manufactured under TSMC's 7 nm process. They were able to achieve 4400 megatransfers per second, which is roughly 37.5% faster than the fastest DDR4 memory that is currently on the market. Nevertheless, Marc Greenberg from Cadence emphasized that DDR5 aims to provide increased capacity solutions, more than actual performance.
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Cadence expect DDR5-4400 to be the standard for DDR5 with DDR5-6400 coming later down the line. According to their analysis, we could see DDR5-based systems as soon as in 2019. However, they'll most likely be servers. The process of DDR5 adoption will be gradual and steady until 2021 when it starts to really ramp up. It's important to point out that the DDR5 standard isn't completed yet. JEDEC won't finalize the specifications for DDR5 until sometime this summer. Having being the first with IP for DDR5, Cadence already has its eyes set on LPDDR5 and HBM.

Quote:When discussing the upcoming release of DDR5, Ted Tsai, SP's DRAM Product Manager, added, "DDR5 is still just 'talk' at this point. The price of DDR5 will be luxury gear for heavy players only."

Quote:DDR5 will be the next step in DDR5 memory tech, again bringing increased transfer speeds over the previous JEDEC (the standards body responsible for the DDR specifications) specification. The new memory technology will also bring the customary reductions in operating voltage - the new version will push the 64-bit link down to 1.1V and burst lengths to 16 bits from 1.2V and 8 bits. In addition, DDR5 lets voltage regulators ride on the memory card rather than the motherboard. CPU vendors are also expected to expand the number of DDR channels on their processors from 12 to 16, which could drive main memory sizes to 128 GB from 64 GB today.
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JEDEC's specification for DDR5 is set at 4800 MT/s, but it's expected the memory tech will scale to 6400 MT/s, and you know overclocking and performance-focused companies will walk all over the standard.
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Cadence says that while comparing DDR4 3200 vs DDR5 3200, there is already an increase in bandwidth of 1.36X - yes, at the same data rate. Add in the frequency increase (and consider the density increase as well), and there's a 1.87x increase in performance when comparing DDR4 3200 to DDR5 4800. Ramp for server/datacenter and other professional environments will start in 2019, with the technology entering the consumer market in 2020 - interestingly, the same longevity AMD themselves gave their Zen architecture.

Quote:SK Hynix announced that it has developed 16 Gb DDR5 DRAM, the industry's first DDR5 to meet the JEDEC standards. The same 1Ynm process technology used for the recently-developed 1Ynm 8Gb DDR4 DRAM was applied to the new DRAM, giving an industry-leading competitive edge for the Company.
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SK Hynix successfully lowered the operating voltage from 1.2V to 1.1V, achieving 30% lower power consumption compared to the previous generation, DDR4 DRAM. The new 16 Gb DDR5 DRAM supports a data transfer rate of 5200 Mbps, about 60% faster compared to 3200 Mbps of the previous generation, with which it can process 41.6 GB of data-11 full-HD video files (3.7 GB each)-per second.
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"Based on technological advancements that allowed the industry's first DDR5 DRAM to meet the JEDEC standards, SK Hynix plans to begin mass producing the product from 2020, when the DDR5 market is expected to open, to actively respond to the demands of clients," said vice president Joohwan Cho, the Head of Volume Product Design Group.

According to IDC, a market research institute, demand for DDR5 is expected to rise from 2020, accounting for 25% of the total DRAM market in 2021 and 44% in 2022.

Quote:The PC5 DDR5 main memory standard could enter the market by 2020, according to SK Hynix research fellow Kim Dong-Kyun. The first such memory standard will be DDR5-5200, which offers nearly double the bandwidth of DDR4-2666. "We are discussing several concepts of the post DDR5," he said. "One concept is to maintain the current trend of speeding up the data transmission, and another is to combine the DRAM technology with system-on-chip process technologies, such as CPU," he added, without offering any additional information.

Quote:SK Hynix and Samsung presented their goals for DDR5 memory at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference. Both companies plan to release DDR5 products by the end of 2019, with SK Hynix focusing on desktops and Samsung on mobile devices.
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It's worth noting that Jedec, which sets the standards for memory products, is still finalizing the details on DDR5. An updated version of the LPDDR5 standard was published on February 19, but the organization hasn't yet established the final DDR5 guidelines.

Memory companies aren't content to wait for those final standards; however, as demonstrated by SK Hynix and Samsung's plans to release DDR5 products by 4Q19. Cadence and Micron also said in October 2018 that they planned to produce DDR5 RAM this year.

What does that mean for consumers? Well, the introduction of DDR5 memory will offer better performance while drawing less power and doubling capacities from DDR4. The new memory will probably be expensive at first, of course, but prices should fall eventually.

SK Hynix reportedly predicted that DDR5 sales would make up 25 percent of the memory market by 2021 and 44 percent by 2022. We suspect it will become even more popular in the mobile market, too, as companies search for ways to combat flagging phone sales.

Quote:In less than three years we went from four cores being just about the highest number most gamers or regular PC users could expect in their computers to three times as many. What all of this means is that we’re going need to drastically increase our memory bandwidth per core, too, if our PCs are going to keep up with AMD and Intel’s core war.

As we can see from Micron’s chart above, bandwidth per core has remained relatively stable since the early 2000s. However, bandwidth per core has started to decline since last year.
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SK Hynix predicted that DDR5 module sales would represent 25% of the RAM market in 2020 and 44% in 2021. The adoption of DDR5 RAM may be even faster in the mobile and data center markets. Smartphone makers (including Samsung) will want to outclass the competition with faster DDR5 LPDRAM, while data center customers will be seeking to satisfy their ever-increasing bandwidth needs. Meanwhile, we're still waiting for word on a firm arrival date for DDR5 for desktop PC, but this will likely hinge on AMD and Intel offering support on mainstream motherboards. Unfortunately, there have been no signs of DDR5 enablement from either company yet.

Quote:Micron has today announced that it started sampling RDIMMs based on DDR5 technology to its industry partners. Designed for server operations, these DDR5 modules come in RDIMM form-factor and feature Error-Correcting Code (ECC) technology for removing any error that occurs inside electronic circuits. The new DDR5 standard offers a massive performance uplift compared to the previous generation of DDR4 memory. For starters, DDR5 will double the MT/s transfer rate to 6400 MT/s, double the speed of the original 3200 MT/s speed for DDR4 that was established by JEDEC. The bandwidth of the new DDR memory is supposed to be 32 GB/s, which is 25% faster than the original 25.6 GB/s bandwidth of DDR4.

With DDR5, the SDRAM prefetch buffer data size is being doubled to 16 data words per memory access, making for a 16n prefetching throughput. Another improvement is that the highest possible density for DDR5 chips is, now being up to 64 Gb per chip. Additionally, DDR5 is supposed to bring the power needed for chip operation down to 1.1 volts, which is around 8% lower than what DDR4 achieved. There are also features like MIR (Mirror Pin) which provides better DIMM signaling, and more options for PRECHARGE and REFRESH commands that can now operate on a per bank basis, so specific banks can be refreshed in bank group. It is also worth pointing out that DDR5 chips are manufactured using 1znm memory manufacturing process.

Quote:While the best RAM has been on DDR4 for quite some time now, that doesn't mean that the spec's development has halted. Now, advancements have come far enough for DDR5 to come peeking around the corner, as Samsung is readying DDR5 for volume production in 2021. Manufacturing will take place in a new, second fab in Pyeongtaek, South Korea, Samsung announced today.

The new DDR5 DRAM from Samsung is based on the EUV (extreme ultraviolet) production process. Samsung also announced today that it shipped its first million DDR4 modules built with EUV.

Quote:Cadence, a fabless semiconductor company focusing on the development of IP solutions and IC design and verification tools, today posted an update regarding their development efforts for the 5th generation of DDR memory which is giving us some insights into the development of a new standard. The new DDR5 standard is supposed to bring better speeds and lower voltages while being more power-efficient. In the Cadence's blog called Breakfast Bytes, one of Cadence's memory experts talked about developments of the new standards and how they are developing the IP for the upcoming SoC solutions. Even though JEDEC, a company developing memory standards, hasn't officially published DDR5 standard specifications, Cadence is working closely with them to ensure that they stay on track and be the first on the market to deliver IP for the new standard.

Marc Greenberg, a Cadence expert for memory solutions was sharing his thoughts in the blog about the DDR5 and how it is progressing. Firstly, he notes that DDR5 is going to feature 4800 MT/s speeds at first. The initial speeds will improve throughout the 12 months when the data transfer rate will increase in the same fashion we have seen with previous generation DDR standards. Mr. Greenberg also shared that the goals of DDR5 are to have larger memory dies while managing latency challenges, same speed DRAM core as DDR4 with a higher speed I/O. He also noted that the goal of the new standard is not the bandwidth, but rather capacity - there should be 24Gb of memory per die initially, while later it should go up to 32Gb. That will allow for 256 GB DIMMs, where each byte can be accessed under 100 ns, making for a very responsive system. Mr. Greenberg also added that this is the year of DDR5, as Cadence is receiving a lot of orders for their 7 nm IP which should go in production systems this year.

Quote:SK Hynix has today posted an update on their blog about the upcoming DDR5 memory, which they have developed in co-respondence with JEDEC's progression of the standard. They have noted a few key things, among which some of the most interesting are features like the maximum speed of 8400 MHz. The DDR5 standard is very flexible, allowing manufacturers to release their chips with frequencies ranging anywhere from 3200-8400 MHz. While the lowest speed is 3200 MHz, manufacturers are starting with 4800 MHz chips and building their way up from there. The minimum density of a single DDR5 die is 8 Gb, while the maximum is 64 Gb, quadrupling the maximum capacity of DDR4 dies.

Perhaps one of the biggest changes besides capacity and speed improvements is the addition of Error-Correcting Code (ECC) support for memory. This feature is now not exclusive to special dies, like with DDR4, but rather is built inside every die. The DDR5 memory chips use 32 banks, split into 8 bank groups, which is designed to provide as much bandwidth as possible. Burst Lenght is doubled to 16, compared to 8 of DDR4, so memory access availability is better. Operating Voltage is decreased to 1.1 V, from the previous 1.2 V of DDR4, resulting in an overall decrease of 20% of power consumption. The mass production of SK-Hynix's DDR5 chips will start this year, however, timing is unknown.

Quote:AMD is expected to support the next-generation DDR5 memory standard by 2022, according to a MyDrivers report citing industry sources. We are close to a change in memory standards, with the 5-year old DDR4 memory standard beginning a gradual phase out over the next 3 years. Leading DRAM manufacturers such as SK Hynix have already hinted mass-production of the next-generation DDR5 memory to commence within 2020. Much like with DDR4, Intel could be the first to market with processors that support it, likely with its "Sapphire Rapids" Xeon processors. AMD, on the other hand, could debut support for the standard only with its "Zen 4" microarchitecture slated for 2021 technology announcements, with 2022 availability.

Quote:JEDEC, the consortium in charge of DDR technology development and standardization, has announced that it has completed the last revision to the DDR5 standard. While time-to-market varies, historically it takes 12-18 months from specification finalization to consumer-ready product, and JEDEC has indicated it expects a similar time frame here.
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DDR5 will likely debut next year, possibly in servers first, to be followed by desktop hardware. This may also imply that companies like AMD will keep AM4 around a little longer than we thought — originally, it was thought that we might see DDR5 adoption by 2020 or 2021. If the server market leads on early adoption, late 2021 or early 2022 might be more realistic.

Quote:DDR5 has been in the works for quite some time now. JEDEC published the preliminary spec sheet back in April, and in March Samsung announced its 2021 mass production plans. Now, SK Hynix has come around to tell us that it is launching the first DDR5 modules -- a world first.

Of course, as there is no consumer platform to use these on, for the time being these modules are built for use in enterprise applications: supercomputers built for AI, machine learning, and big data. The modules run at a speeds between 4800 MHz and 5600 MHz, making them seriously speedy -- but nowhere near as fast as the fastest consumer-grade parts will end up, those are rumored to hit as high as 8400 MHz.

Despite the speed gains, power consumption should be lower, too. The standard operating voltage drops from 1.2 V for DDR4 to 1.1 V for DDR5 -- but don't be surprised if the faster modules end up requiring slightly higher operating voltages for stability.

SK Hynix also baked ECC into the DRAM modules that is able to correct single-bit level errors.

SK Hynix didn't quote capacities for these initial modules, but noted that in the future, it will employ TSV (through silicon via) connections to stack DRAM, enabling DIMM capacities of up to 256 GB.
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If you're curious about what to expect on the consumer side of DDR5, chances are that we'll be seeing less of a focus on high capacities, and more emphasis on either lower power consumption for mobile applications, or for enthusiasts and prosumers: even higher speeds. ECC is also likely to be part of the equation. Although most consumer applications currently don't need ECC, as capacities grow the chances for errors grows along with it, making ECC critical to maintaining system stability.

SK Hynix hasn't stated any specific availability for the DDR5 DIMMs, but notes that the modules are ready for when the DDR5 market becomes active.

Quote:DDR5 is slated for a 2021 release, and TeamGroup is working around the clock to be one of the first vendors to push out their products. The memory manufacturer has already started the validation phase with the top motherboard companies in the industry, including Asus, MSI, ASRock and Gigabyte.

Just to start things off, TeamGroup plans to release its first wave of DDR5 memory modules with a capacity of 16GB. The memory modules are rated for DDR5-4800 and only require a 1.1V DRAM voltage to operate. The specifications are not final, of course, but that's what TeamGroup expects to put out.

TeamGroup's press release mentions one very particular DDR5 trait. According to the company, users will no longer need to play with BIOS settings to get memory kits to run at their advertised frequency. As you know, the majority, if not all, high-speed DDR4 memory kits run at JEDEC's baseline, and you either have to manually set up the memory or enable the XMP (AMP on AMD) profile inside the BIOS. Apparently, DDR5 will omit that step. However, it's uncertain if DDR5 will run at the marketed frequency and timings right out of the box or there's some kind of chip on the module itself that'll handle the automatic configuration.
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A previous roadmap claimed that AMD will support DDR5 on its next-generation processors too. By next-generation, it's reasonable to assume that it's the chipmaker's Zen 4 parts, which could hit the market with the Ryzen 6000 moniker. Ryzen 5000 (Vermeer) was AM4's last ride, meaning that Zen 4 will likely command a new socket, probably AM5 if AMD continues with the trend.

Quote:Adata has teamed up with Gigabyte and MSI to ensure that its upcoming DDR5 memory modules will be able to hit an 8400 MT/s data transfer rate on Intel's next-gen Alder Lake platform.

The DDR5 memory promises a rather massive performance increase compared to DDR4 due to a tangible increase in data transfer rates as well as efficiency improvements. When the DDR5 specification was published in mid-2020, it was expected that the first desktop memory modules based on the new standard would hit DDR4-4800 or DDR5-5200 data rates, whereas eventually the standard will reach up to DDR5-8400. As it turns out, even the first-generation DDR5 platforms will be able to hit an 8400 MT/s data transfer rate.

Adata on Wednesday said that it was testing its 64GB DDR5-8400 memory modules on the 'latest Intel platforms' for consumers, which probably means Intel's upcoming Alder Lake processors with up to eight high-performance Golden Cove cores and eight energy-efficient Grace Mont cores. The motherboards that Adata uses right now are from Gigabyte and MSI.
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Hitting DDR5-8400 using the first-generation DDR5 platform and memory modules is an impressive achievement. Given all the advantages that DDR5 already has on an architectural level, it remains to be seen how significantly real-world data rates can be improved with the evolution of memory controllers, platform designs, and memory module designs.