DDR5 memory is still impossible to get, but the major DRAM manufacturers have begun work on DDR6.
According to the Korean publication The Elec, substrate manufacturers have been requested by the top three memory makers, Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron, to advance the development of DDR6.
Package substrates in DRAM matter because they are the physical and electrical foundation for the memory cell array, and they strongly affect speed, power, heat handling, and yield. In short, the substrate is the foundation on which a DRAM stick is built.
And since Samsung, Hynix, and Micron have enough to do with DRAM memory, the substrate is left to Asian companies you probably never heard of, including SIMMTECH, Daeduck, Unimicron, Nan Ya PCB, Ibiden, Shinko Electric Industries, Samsung Electro-Mechanics, and HOREXS.
DDR6 is meant to replace DDR5 in mainstream DRAM, not GPU memory like GDDR6/GDDR7. The specs are not set in stone or publicly available yet, but there have been repeated reports that performance will be doubled over DDR5, to a base range around 8,800 MT/s and upper target near 17,600 MT/s.
There is reportedly a big architectural change with a move to four 24-bit sub-channels per module, instead of DDR5’s two 32-bit channels. This will greatly increase memory bandwidth. DDR6 standard-module bandwidth is rumored to be up to 134.4 GB/s, well above the 44.8 GB/s for DDR5.
According to market research firm Trendforce, DDR5 accounts for over 80% of the server memory market share and is expected to reach 90% this year.
DDR6 will not hit the market for at least another two years, keeping with the cadence of a memory revision every several years. DDR3 was released in 2007, DDR4 was released in 2014, and DDR5 was released in 2020.
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Originally published by Techstrong.IT. Republished with attribution.
