NEW VERSION TO THE RAM

New Technology will boost Tablet & Server performance

Introducing "DDR4 RAM"

The upcoming shift from Double Data Rate 3 (DDR3) RAM to its successor, DDR4, will herald in a significant boost in both memory performance and capacity for data center hardware and consumer products alike. The DDR4 memory standard, which the Joint Electronic Devices Engineering Council (JEDEC) expects to OK this summer, represents a doubling of performance over its predecessor and a reduction in power use by 20% to 40% based on a maximum 1.2 volts of power use.


What are the experts saying?

“It’s a fantastic product, increasing the amount of memory and the bandwidth of that memory is going to have huge implications.” said Mike Howard, analyst with market research firm IHS iSuppli.

“With DDR4, we’re certainly seeing some larger power savings advantages with the performance increase. For DDR3, we see stacking going up to four chips (4H), [but] for DDR4 this clearly will go up to eight chips stacked on top of each other (8H), which means that, using a 16Gbit memory [chip], manufacturers will be able to produce 128Gbit memory boards” said Todd Farrell, director of technical marketing for Micron’s DRAM Solutions Group.

Advantages of DDR4

In Mobile & Tablets

The jump from DDR3 to DDR4 as greater than any other past DDR memory evolution.
It’s hard to pick just one attribute. DDR4's significant reduction in power needs means that relatively low-priced DDR memory will, for the first time, be used in mobile products such as ultrabooks and tablets. Today, mobile devices use low-power DDR (LPDDR) memory, the current iteration of which uses 1.2v of power. The next generation of mobile memory, LPDDR3, will further reduce that power consumption (probably by 35 percent to 40 percent), but it will likely cost 40 percent more than DDR4 memory. LPDDR memory is more expensive to manufacture.


Servers

The impact that DDR4 will have on the server market could be even greater. DDR4 is one of these devices where you’re getting a lot of benefits at once. Power reduction is key. But at the same time we’re reducing power, we’re getting a substantial increase in performance. They kind of go hand in hand. For example, if you run DDR4 at the same bandwidth as DDR3, you can achieve a 30 percent to 40 percent power savings. Running at its maximum bandwidth, which represents a doubling of performance, DDR4 will use the same power as its predecessor.