Samsung's upgraded Green DDR3 memory, tons of extra RAM

Posted 02/24/2010 at 12:48pm | by Bart Salisbury

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Samsung has just upped the ante on DDR3, by making the memory modules even smaller and more energy efficient. It’s reduced the process size from 40nm to 30nm, which lowers productions costs, allows for higher density memory, and reduces energy consumption.

According to Samsung, productivity in mass production is 60 percent greater with 30nm-class process technology, with production-cost efficiencies double that of DRAM using 50nm or 60nm-class technology.

Furthermore, the 30nm-class 2Gb “Green” DRAM reduces energy consumption by 30 percent. Samsung says a 4GB, 30nm DDR3 in a new generation notebook will only use three watts per hour, or about three percent of the notebook’s power consumption.

Samsung’s focus is not specifically the consumer market, but rather the server market where memory is one of the drivers for energy costs. Widespread use of this new memory technology promises significant reduction in server energy costs, which should be attractive to the enterprise market. (Hence the “Green” appellation.) Still, this new 30nm-class DDR3 will be making its way into consumer products: desktops, laptops, netbooks, and mobile devices.

Samsung says mass production of its new 30nm-class 1.35V DDR3 is scheduled for the second half of 2010. That could mean they will start appearing in consumer hardware by the end of the year.

Image Credit: Samsung