[Tech Day 2022] DRAM Solutions to Advance Data Intelligence

This year is especially meaningful for Samsung because it marks its 30th year as the world’s No. 1 DRAM provider – a streak that dates back to Samsung’s development of 64Mb DRAM in 1992. Over the next several years, Samsung will continue to produce the highest-quality DRAM, just as it’s always done, through disruptive innovation and advancements in scaling technology.

DRAM scaling has never been more difficult. However, Samsung is already preparing solutions to overcome DRAM’s biggest challenges. As DRAM drops down to around 10nm-scale, the process difficulty increases significantly. Patterning, cell transistors, cell capacitance, and bandwidth requirements present bigger challenges the smaller the size. To overcome those challenges, Samsung has been preparing its own scale-down process and device technologies. It has also been exploring and developing disruptive solutions with new materials and new array architectures.

Samsung’s scale-down processes will continue to evolve, driving progress along its DRAM roadmap. EUV patterning will continue to advance thanks to High-NA, which will allow Samsung to enhance its patterning capabilities with smaller process steps. In addition, new metals with lower resistance will be introduced to shrink both word and bit lines. Adopting these new materials can enable word- and bit-line resistance to be improved by 40% and 35%, respectively. This makes these key technologies for pushing the limits of cell size. Dielectrics with higher-k and high aspect ratio contact-etching processes will also be crucial to ushering in the next phase of DRAM capacitors. Samsung has prepared for this as well and is fully equipped to atomically control the crystallinity of high-k dielectrics at the sub-nanometer scale. Using FinFET, Samsung can improve speed and power by 30% and 20%, respectively, for 0.9V operation.

What you see here are Samsung’s latest cutting-edge DRAM products, set for release starting next year. This includes Samsung’s high-capacity 32Gb DDR5 for data centers and servers, which will support up to 1TB modules. Its low-power mobile DRAM and high-performance graphic DRAM will feature 8.5Gbps and 28Gbps speeds, respectively, making them the fastest in the world. LLW DRAM – a low-latency wide IO product – is also being developed, along with an HBM that offers a super-high bandwidth of 1TB/s. Lastly, Samsung offers a wide range of tailored DRAM solutions that encompass everything from cache to high-capacity memory. These include LLC-DRAM, a last-level cache DRAM; HBM-PIM, high-bandwidth memory with in-memory processing; AXDIMM, DIMM embedded with near data processing; CXL-MXP, a memory expander; and CXL-PNM, an expander with processing features for the new CXL interface.

With an eye toward the future, Samsung continues to ask what’s next for DRAM technology and develops the solutions required to realize that future. With innovations ranging from conventional to tailored DRAM, Samsung is ready to provide the DRAM solutions the industry needs. It will continue to innovate with the firm belief that the path forward lies in embracing more challenges, innovations, and collaborations.