SK Hynix will begin mass production ddr5 this year and call ddr5-8400

Memory manufacturer SK Hynix will start mass production of ddr5 memory chips this year. The manufacturer cites speeds from ddr5-3200 to ddr5-8400. That maximum speed is probably still a few years away.

SK Hynix lists a number of advantages of the ddr5 memory on its news site. It is more economical, faster and has a higher density, which allows for greater capacity per module. Also ddr5 supports error correction on the die.

Initially, SK Hynix aims at making ddr5-4800 memory. Its bandwidth is 50 percent higher than with DDR4-3200. The step is greater than the step from ddr3-1600 to ddr4-2133; that was an improvement of about 33 percent.

In the coming years there will be faster ddr5 memory, in a slide SK Hynix shows up to ddr5-8400. The manufacturer presumably bases this on the Jedec specification. The manufacturer says it will start mass production of ddr5 this year. These are 16Gbit chips on a 10nm-class process.

DDR5 will initially be used in servers. Intel has its Sapphire Rapid server platform with DDR5 support on the roadmap for 2021. AMD’s plans are unknown, but it is likely that that manufacturer will also release new server CPUs and motherboards with DDR5 support in that year. A consumer platform with ddr5 support is coming next, but that could take a few more years.

Samsung announced at the end of March that it will produce DDR5 with EUV next year. Micron is also working on ddr5; that manufacturer started supplying samples of its ddr5 memory chips at the beginning of this year.