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SK hynix says DDR5 mass production will begin this year

by Mark Tyson on 3 April 2020, 10:11

Tags: SK hynix

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SK hynix has updated its newsroom content with a technical blog about the attractions of DDR5. The blog contains a number of interesting points and illustrations making the advances of DDR5 and its appeal very clear. Moreover, SK hynix says that DDR5 will be available "in the near future," and backs that up by announcing mass-production of its DDR5 memory chips "this year". HEXUS has reported previously on the road to DDR5, as the next DRAM standard, including a piece on SK hynix's first DDR5 chips published in Feb 2019.

A well established trend in recent years is of computers typically packing in more CPU cores. That pace of the change has been rather dramatic and so too has the demand on memory bandwidth to make an efficient system. In 2013 we witnessed a big transition from DDR3 to DDR4 which delivered a DIMM bandwidth increase of approx a third. In developing DDR5 SK hynix has aimed for a more than doubling of bandwidth per DIMM, aiming for over 4,800Mbps.

In addition to extra bandwidth, SK hynix says it has endeavoured to increase performance, capacity, and power and cost efficiency beyond the capabilities of DDR4 - plus offer greater reliability with on-die ECC. It has adopted the following features to realise this goal:

  • Firstly, DDR5 adopted 32banks structure based on 8 bank groups, which is twice as many as DDR4's 16banks structure using 4 bank groups. This helped double DDR5's memory access availability compared to DDR4.
  • Secondly, DDR5's burst length (BL) is increased to 16 compared to 8 of DDR4, which is another key feature to double memory access availability.
  • Thirdly, DDR4 cannot perform other operations while refreshing, so it cannot be accessed from the system during refresh timing. However, DDR5 adopted Same Bank Refresh function, allowing the system to access other banks when certain banks are operating, thus improving memory access availability.

As you can see from the DDR5 specs highlighted and compared above, SK hynix indicates that JEDEC speeds for modules will reach DDR5-8400.

According to market researchers quoted by SK hynix, DDR5's adoption starting from 2020 will rise to account for 22 per cent of the total DRAM market as soon as 2021. SK hynix intends to deliver ultra-high-speed, high-capacity memory from the outset, starting with its 10nm-class 16Gb DDR5 chips.



HEXUS Forums :: 16 Comments

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I wish they would just jump DDR5 and go straight to DDR6, the PS5 and Xbox series X will have 16GB DDR6 as standard so I think anything new that comes to PC now should be at least that.
The consoles are using GDDR6 not DDR6. Different beast totally…
3dcandy
The consoles are using GDDR6 not DDR6. Different beast totally…

Ok thanks for the correction, only thing is the consoles use it for the whole system not just graphics.

So i'm guessing the PC accesses the CPU mostly so DDR5 is lower bandwidth tighter timing more efficient for CPU access whereas GDDR6 is high bandwidth loose timing better for GPU i guess.

Just found this explanation it was quite helpful.

https://www.hardwaretimes.com/difference-between-ddr4-vs-gddr5-vs-gddr6-memory-ddr4-vs-lpddr4-comparison-whats-hbm2/
Consoles use GDDR as system memory?

Myself I've only just moved from DDR3 to DDR4. Please don't make my new system obsolete as soon as I've built it….
I will take new hardware ( CPU - MOBO ) with 8 X 64 GB DDR8400 RAM.
Only problem is no one will buy it for me

My current CPU will not push 64Gb of RAM at 3600 MHZ, it will only do that with 32GB, so i have to make do with just shy of 3500 MHZ cuz i cant be bothered with tweaking it more.