SK hynix announced that it will start mass production of LPDDR6 memory based on its latest 1c (10nm-class) DRAM process in the second half of this year. The company just completed validation of the 1c dies and will spend the first half of this year in preparation for mass production.
The company has developed 16 gigabit LPDDR6 chips that will be used in smartphones and tablets with on-device AI. Bandwidth-hungry AI tasks will see a 33% speed-up in data processing compared to LPDDR5X. The new RAM has a base operating speed of 10.7Gbps.
Additionally, LPDDR6 is at least 20% more power efficient compared to the previous RAM standard. This is achieved through two methods that scale performance based on demand: sub-channel structure and DVFS.
The sub-channel structure allows some data paths to go dormant when the extra bandwidth isn’t necessary. DVFS, or Dynamic Voltage and Frequency Scaling, does what it says on the tin – it reduces the operating frequency (and thus voltage) for light loads and can crank them back up for demanding tasks such as AI and gaming.
SK hynix says that its 1c LPDDR6 RAM will enable longer battery life and higher multitasking performance on future devices.