14 DAY TRIAL // Elpida Memory, one of the largest DRAM makers in the world, has just announced that it has developed a low-power mobile 4 Gigabit DDR3 (LPDDR3) memory chip that is capable of reaching a transfer speed of 1600Mbps.
The memory chip is built using the advanced 30nm CMOS process technology and it can achieve the 1600Mbps speed while requiring just 1.2V.
According to the data provided by Elpida, the new LDDDR3 memory can support a data transfer rate of 6.4 gigabytes per second (GB/s) when used in a single-chip configuration.
Furthermore, when installed in high-end mobile devices that support dual memory chip configurations, this figure doubles to reach 12.8GB/s.
When compared with LPDDR2 memory chips, that are the current standard for tablets, smartphones and other low-power mobile devices, Elpida’s LPDDR3 provides a minimum data transfer rate increase of 49%.
The increase in performance over LPDDR2 is achieved without giving up on energy efficiency since when compared to such memory, Elpida’s new chips consume roughly 25% less power at the same speed.
Sample shipments of the new LPDDR3 will begin toward the end of 2011. Depending on customer demand, volume production is expected to start in late 2012.
In addition, Elpida also plans to produce 8-gigabit and 16-gigabit LPDDR3 memory chips based on this technology that will come in two- and four-layer stacking configurations.
For applications requiring even faster data transfer rates, Elpida also manufactures Wide I/O memory chips that have 512 I/O pins and can transmit data at a rate of 12.8Gb/s.
However, "wide" parallel interfaces are more expensive to manufacture and package, so there aren’t as popular among hardware makers as the simpler LPDDR memory.