Samsung Electronics said Wednesday it has started mass production of a one-package chip, which stacks a number of different smartphone parts together, enabling thinner handsets with bigger batteries.
The company is now mass producing the first ePoP (embedded package on package) memory – a single memory package consisting of 3GB LPDDR3 DRAM, 32GB eMMC (embedded multi-media card) and a controller. For use in high-end smartphones, the thin ePoP combines all essential memory components into a single package that can be stacked directly on top of the mobile processor, without taking any additional space - an improvement over existing two-package eMCP memory solutions.
The 3GB LPDDR3 mobile DRAM inside the ePoP operates at an I/O data transfer rate of 1,866Mb/s, and sports a 64-bit I/O bandwidth.
Because of its thinness and special heat-resistant properties, Samsung’s smartphone ePoP does not need any space beyond the 225 square millimeters (15x15mm) taken up by the mobile application processor. A conventional PoP (also 15mm x 15mm), consisting of the mobile processor and DRAM, along with a separate eMMC (11.5mm x 13mm) package, takes up 374.5 square millimeters. Replacing that set-up with a Samsung ePoP decreases the total area used by approximately 40 percent. The single-package configuration also meets the semiconductor package height ceiling of 1.4 millimeters (mm).
Samsung already has been offering a similar single-package solution for wearable devices, referred to as "wearable memory".