SK Hynix is gearing up for the development of the industry-first 48GB and 96GB DDR5 memory chips targeting servers

SK Hynix has begun sampling the industry’s first 24GB DDR5 memory chips, paving the way for 48GB and 96GB memory modules for next-generation servers such as AMD’s Genoa and Intel’s Sapphire Rapids CPUs. The same components can also be used to create 24GB unbuffered DIMMs for desktops and workstations. High-end servers could now have 768GB of DDR5 on a single module as a result of the advancement.

The company’s 1anm fabrication process, which uses both extreme ultraviolet (EUV) and deep ultraviolet (DUV) lithography to increase device density without sacrificing yields, is used to make the 24GB (3GB) DDR5 memory chips. The new technology, according to SK Hynix, improves production efficiency and performance by up to 33%, indicating a significant increase in memory cell density from the new node. Because we’re dealing with DDR5, the new DRAM ICs will also aid in lowering system power consumption.

48GB (20 ICs) and 96GB (40 ICs) registered DIMMs with ECC for next-generation servers will be the first products based on the new 24Gb DDR5 chips. SK Hynix will eventually be able to produce 24GB memory chips using 8-Hi stacks including these ICs, and then build 768GB modules on top of that. Samsung is working on similar components, but no sample program has been announced.

SK Hynix hasn’t indicated how the new 24GB DDR5 chips would be used in client PCs, but given how creative system designers are, we can expect client PCs with some interesting memory configurations in the future.

Large hyper-scale cloud data centres will be the first customers for these 48GB and 96GB RDIMMs, according to the DRAM maker, but he didn’t specify. Because neither AMD nor Intel currently sells DDR5-capable server platforms, machines running Amazon Web Services’ Graviton3 system-on-chip could be among the first to use these new high-capacity DDR5 RDIMMs (SoC).

“In line with the release of 24Gb DDR5, SK Hynix is closely engaging with several customers that provide cloud services,” said Kevin (Jongwon) Noh, President and Chief Marketing Officer at SK Hynix. 

SK Hynix also stated that it is working with Intel to ensure that the new chips and modules are compatible with Intel’s future DDR5-supporting server architecture, codenamed Sapphire Rapids.

“Today’s announcement is another illustration of our two companies working together to deliver a 24Gb solution to address the needs of our mutual customers,” said Carolyn Duran, Vice President of Memory and IO Technologies in Intel’s Data Center and AI Group. The 24Gb DDR5 offering provides high mono die capacity and will help customers boost the performance of memory capacity bound workloads such as data analytics while bringing significant TCO benefits.”

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