Samsung Electronics today announced the development of an eight
gigabyte (GB) registered dual inline memory module (RDIMM) based
on its Green DDR3 DRAM.
The new memory module, which has just been successfully tested by
major Samsung customers, delivers high performance, in particular
because of its use of a three-dimensional (3D) chip stacking
technology referred to as 'through silicon via' (TSV).
"At Samsung, we're well positioned to accommodate early market
demand for our state-of-the-art TSV technology as the industry
continues to forge forward with even further advances in bonding
technology to enable greater performance and operational
efficiency," said Dr. Chang-Hyun Kim, senior vice president and
Samsung fellow, memory product planning & application engineering
at Samsung Electronics. "Our 40nm-class RDIMM being announced
today marks the introduction of a more advanced eco-friendly
'Green Memory' product line up utilizing 3D-TSV technology that
is expected to enhance the leadership of Samsung and our allies
in server and enterprise storage."
An 8GB RDIMM utilizing Samsung's 3D TSV technology saves up to 40
percent of the power consumed by a conventional RDIMM. Also, the
TSV technology allows for an improvement in memory chip density
that is expected to offset the decrease of memory sockets in next
generation server systems. In the face of a 30 percent decrease
in memory slots in next-generation servers, the TSV technology
will be able to raise the DRAM density by more than 50 percent,
making it highly attractive for high-density, high-performance
server systems.
Samsung's TSV technology is a key to solving the paradox of
driving lower power consumption in servers, while increasing
memory capacity and improving performance.
The TSV technology fabricates micron-sized holes through the
silicon vertically, with a copper filling. By using the - through
silicon via - bonding process instead of conventional wire
bonding, signal lines are shortened significantly, enabling the
multi-stacked chip to function at levels comparable to a single
silicon chip.
Already passing customer performance tests, Samsung is readying
its TSV technology for a variety of server applications having
stringent performance and power demands.
Samsung plans to apply the higher performance and lower power
features of its TSV technology to 30nm-class and finer process
nodes.