Low-power Semiconductor

All corners of the world have been experiencing extreme weather events in the last few years. Summer this year was no exception. The U.S. and Canada saw a heat wave with temperatures soaring to almost 50 degrees, and cities in the U.K, Germany, and China were inundated by torrential rain. A major cause of such climate change is ‘global warming’ due to greenhouse gas emissions. In lesson 8 of Semiconductors 101, we will learn about ‘low-power semiconductors’, slowing global warming with superb power efficiency. Data Centers and the Earth: growing hotter with data use

With 5G, AI and IoT technologies making headway at blistering speed, and the use of YouTube and OTT video platforms becoming part of everyday life, vast masses of video and photos are stored in ‘data centers’. Data centers must be up and running 24 hours in order to process, store and provide consumers with data without interruption. This naturally calls for massive amounts of ‘electrical power’. Aside from power to keep data centers running, power is also needed to keep these endlessly running data centers cool. Increase in the use of such electrical power is a major cause of greenhouse gas emissions, which lead to global warming. Accordingly, reducing data center power consumption has become a task of global proportions. One notable potential solution to stemming the explosion in data center power use is the ‘low-power semiconductor’. These semiconductors use less electricity and generate less heat, and are able to optimize the power efficiency of entire data centers. A cool solution for the environment: ‘low-power semiconductors’

Conventional data center servers stored data using HDDs (Hard Disk Drives). Then in the 2000s came the SSD (Solid State Drive), with better performance and lower power consumption and heat output. This quickly became established as the go-to solution for data center data storage, supplanting the HDD. But the volume of data generated by mankind has been multiplying at an astonishing rate, and it is expected that by 2025, the data we will have accumulated is expected to reach 175ZB (zettabytes), some 5.3 times the data we had as recently as 2018. Accordingly, the importance of power-efficient data centers is ever increasing.

* Zettabyte (ZB): A unit representing an amount of data. A combination of the prefix ‘zetta’ for 10 to the 21st power, and ‘byte’, a unit of computer data.

Samsung Semiconductor is striving to maximize SSD power efficiency. This work involves finding ‘power headroom’ elements, that is, unnecessary power consumption during SSD operation, and monitoring temperature changes to develop technologies to minimize heat output. Through these efforts, we launched the high-performance low-power data center SSD ‘PM9A3 E1.S’ in February 2021, followed in March by low-power, high-performance DDR5 modules produced using the ‘High-K Metal Gates’ (HKMG) process, a first time in the industry. May saw the launch of three power management integrated circuits (PMICs) to maximize DDR 5 DRAM module performance while minimizing power consumption. How much can ‘lower-power memory semiconductors’ reduce data center power consumption?

Assuming that all of the data center HDDs shipped in 2020 were to be replaced with SSDs, the annual power savings would amount to 3TWh (terawatt hours). Then, by upgrading the conventional DDR4 DRAM in all servers shipped in 2020 to state-of-the-art DDR5, an additional 1TWh annual savings becomes possible. As a result of such power savings, a further 3TWh additional power savings are possible in data center facilities operation, including direct power requirements for server operation and cooling. Altogether, a total of 7TWh of power can be saved on an annual basis. This is enough to replace two and a half decrepit thermal power stations. Use of low-power semiconductors can save massive amounts of energy, and also cut back on greenhouse gas emissions.

* Watt hours (Wh): A unit of power. The amount of electrical power used is defined as the product of wattage and time. Watt hour (Wh) stands for power (watt, W) multiplied by time (h).

That’s about it for ‘low-power semiconductors’, slowing global warming with unrivaled performance and power efficiency. Since introducing its ‘Green Memory’ campaign in 2009, Samsung has launched ever-better low power semiconductors year on year. Our efforts toward a sustainable future will continue. We hope you’ve learned a thing or two today - see you in the next lesson!