Samsung to start 14nm production of DDR5 memory with five EUV layers

Samsung has started production of DDR5 memory at 14nm using extreme ultraviolet lithography for five layers. The memory offers a speed of 7.2 Gbit/s.

Samsung uses extreme ultraviolet lithography for five layers of its new 14nm DRAM, increasing wafer productivity, the number of functional chips per wafer, by 20 percent, according to Samsung.

Last year, Samsung started producing DRAM using euv, with the previous generation of DDR4 memory. It is not known how many chip layers the company used euv at the time. Samsung does report that that number has been increased to five. Last year it was still the first generation 10nm-class DDR4 memory, or D1x. Samsung then reported that it was working on EUV production of the fourth-generation 10mn-class dram, or D1a. That now appears to be the 14nm production. Samsung reports that energy consumption can decrease by twenty percent compared to the previous node, but it is unclear which node the company is referring to.

Samsung expects to be able to produce 24Gbit memory chips in the short term, which indicates that 16Gbit chips are still involved. With the DDR5-7200, Samsung is mainly targeting the data center and supercomputer market. SK hynix also uses euv in the production of memory.