Samsung announces start of 14nm EUV DDR5 production

Samsung made history in 2020 by being the first to ship EUV DRAM. Now, they have started mass production of the smallest 14nm EUV DRAM in the industry. This latest innovation is significant because it makes Samsung DDR5 DRAM the densest available, with five layers of EUV technology, promising greater performance and capacity.

In a press release, Jooyoung Lee, Senior VP and head of DRAM product & technology at Samsung Electronics, highlighted the milestone achieved with extreme miniaturization of DRAM using EUV 14nm technology. Samsung’s own testing shows that the new DDR5 will improve productivity and tasks in the data-driven world of 5G, AI, and the metaverse by up to 20% compared to previous generation DRAM, with efficiency also seeing a similar boost.

As for performance, Samsung claims that speeds of up to 7.2Gbps can be achieved with the latest DDR5 standard, compared to less than half that rate for a standard DDR4 module, which runs at around 3.2Gbps.

Samsung aims to further enhance its 14nm DRAM output to increase IC density to 24Gb, potentially enabling 768GB DDR5 DIMMs. While mainstream DDR5 DIMMs are initially expected to have capacities of up to 64GB per stick.

DDR5 pricing hint from Newegg

Early reports suggest that DDR5 will come at a premium, with Newegg listing a GeIL Polaris RGB SYNC 32GB (2 x 16GB) 288-Pin DDR5 SDRAM DDR5 4800 (PC5 38400) Desktop Memory for US$349.99. This pricing trend was also seen in Japan, with the same memory kit priced at JPY45,174. These prices translate to between GBP£250 and £300.