Samsung announces start of 14nm EUV DDR5 production

Samsung shipped EUV DRAM in 2020, ranking first in the industry. The importance of this latest innovation is that Samsung’s DDR5 DRAM becomes the highest density yet (five-layer EUV), which is said to enable “higher performance and capacity.”

Jooyoung Lee, senior vice president and head of DRAM products and technology at Samsung Electronics, said in a report Press release Samsung has achieved an important milestone by achieving extreme miniaturization of DRAM with the application of its EUV 14nm technology. According to Samsung’s own testing, the new DDR5 will improve productivity and tasks by up to 20% in the “data-driven world of 5G, artificial intelligence and the metaverse” compared to the previous generation of DRAM. Efficiency should improve by a similar margin.

Thankfully, we have more data to share when it comes to performance. Samsung says it can reach speeds of up to 7.2Gbps using the latest DDR5 standard. For reference, standard DDR4 modules run at less than half that rate, around 3.2Gbps.

Last but not least, Samsung intends to improve its 14nm DRAM production and increase IC density to 24Gb. This feat is possible with 768GB DDR5 DIMMs. It is initially expected that the capacity of each mainstream DDR5 DIMM will not exceed 64GB.

Newegg’s DDR5 pricing tips

While we can all agree that DDR5 is an attractive proposition for buyers of new systems that support it, rumors suggest that early adopter enthusiast motherboards will be available in multiple variants – with one version supporting DDR5 and another DDR4. For example, Asus was found to be registering Prime Z690-A, Z690-P and Z690-V motherboards with a “D4” suffix.

For example, the latest platforms such as Alder Lake-S may welcome motherboard options to lower the build price, as Newegg’s listing suggests that DDR5 will command a considerable premium when released. Twitter leaker has spot The GeIL Polaris RGB SYNC 32GB (2 x 16GB) 288-pin DDR5 SDRAM DDR5 4800 (PC5 38400) desktop memory on Newegg is quite expensive at $349.99. The same memory kit was later discovered in Japan, priced at 45,174 yen. These amounts translate to between £250 and £300.