Micron Technology, Inc. today announced advancements in DRAM scaling, making Micron the first memory company to begin mass production of 16Gb DDR4 products using 1z nm process technology

“Development and mass production of the industry’s smallest feature size DRAM node are a testament to Micron’s world-class engineering and manufacturing capabilities, especially at a time when DRAM scaling is becoming extremely complex,” said Scott DeBoer, executive vice president of Technology Development for Micron Technology. “Being first to market strongly positions us to continue offering high-value solutions across a wide portfolio of end customer applications.”

Micron says its 1z nm 16Gb DDR4 product delivers "substantially higher bit density," as well as "significant performance enhancements and lower cost" compared to the previous generation 1Y nm node. It also reinforces Micron’s continued progress in delivering improvements in relative performance and power consumption for compute DRAM (DDR4), mobile DRAM (LPDDR4) and graphics DRAM (GDDR6) product lines. The new memory will be used in applications including, among others, artificial intelligence, autonomous vehicles, 5G, mobile devices, graphics, gaming, network infrastructure and servers.

Micron initiated the transition to 1z nm with mass production of its 16Gb DDR4 memory solution. Production using the smaller node delivers several benefits, including an approximately 40% reduction in power consumption compared to previous generations of 8Gb DDR4-based products.

Separately, Micron also announced today that it has begun volume shipments of the industry’s highest-capacity monolithic 16Gb low-power double data rate 4X (LPDDR4X) DRAM in UFS-based multichip packages (uMCP4). Micron’s 1z nm LPDDR4X and uMCP4 is designed for mobile device manufacturers, with Micron advertising the low power and small size as advantages for upcoming smartphones in the mid- to high-end segments featuring new form factors and long battery life.

The 16Gb low-power double data rate 4X (LPDDR4X) DRAM is capable of delivering up to 16GB of low-power DRAM (LPDRAM) in a single smartphone.

Micron says its new 1z nm LPDDR4X products offer the industry’s lowest power consumption while maintaining the fastest LPDDR4 clock speeds of up to 4,266 megabits per second (Mbps). They consume up to 10% less power than previous-generation solutions for memory-intensive applications such as 4K video playback.

Micron LPDDR4X memory solutions are available today in volume quantities as discrete solutions and in eight different configurations of UFS-based multichip packages (uMCP4), ranging from 64GB+3GB to 256GB+8GB.