March 2015 – In a briefing with the Samsung Semiconductor group, we received an update on its mobile memory and SSD products. Mueez Deen, Senior Director of Marketing for Mobile Memory was discussing the new capacities for LPDDR4 DRAM.
The product is now available in 4GB in a single package which will enable new higher density modules. Currently, LP memory has 100% saturation in mobile phones and 80% saturation of the tablet marketplace. The new growth areas are in Ultralights and convertible PCs. They are moving to the LP platform for power reasons which allow for reduced thickness in designs for these products. Standby Power is the driving constraint on these ultrathin units which supports input from both keyboards and touchscreens as well as the ability to run full Windows This is the key for longer use, in providing all day power or virtually all-day power.This increase in density allows these units to now support 16GB of DRAM.
The new modules are moving into Automotive and 4K video enabled tablets. For both of these applications the LPDDR4 modules are available in either 3GB or 4GB units. The new LPDDR4 memories provide a 35-40% power reduction for the same speed or twice the speed for only 20% more power than existing LPDDR3 products. In mobile phones the eMCP modules dominate. For these new applications, including wearables, a module called ePOP has been developed that uses stacked die (eMMC and LP) directly on top of the application processor,
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Samsung ePOP Module
On the SSD and flash front, we spoke with Ryan Smith, Director of SSD Marketing.at Samsung Semiconductor The Samsung product line is transitioning from 2D high density flash to 3D VNAND Flash. While the rest of the industry is working on stabilizing the process dynamics of VNAND, Samsung is working on the optimization of their 2nd Generation process. The process is being used for TLC SSDs. Even in its 2D products, Samsung's controllers and products are utilizing TLC NAND more than either MLC or SLC Flash.
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SSD Interface Migration
In addition to the higher density, the interfaces are changing due to performance needs. SATA and SAS interfaces are shifting to PCIe in order to address the higher speed and high IOPS needed for gaming and video applications. This is not the only changing interface, due to bandwidth limitations Samsung is shifting some of its eMMC designs to the UFS (Universal Flash Storage) interface. The UFS interface features a High Performance Serial Interface, Concurrent Read/Write Operations, multi-lane scalability, Command Queuing, flash oriented features and low power operations. This direction allows the ability to move the SSD-like UFSs into the Smartphone market which will produce a better User Experience due to Faster Boot, Faster Application Response and Fast File Copying. The use of the UFS interface will also allow improved smartphone design. At this time, this layout is still designed around the battery as the dominant component, followed by the Flash Memory.
Outside of mobile products, SSDs are making in-roads in to other applications. The highest attach rate is with PCs, followed by Data Centers. The Enterprise is still dominated by SAS & high performance HDDs (10K & 15K). These are starting to transition to SSDs, primarily with SATA interface in SAS arrays. As these high spin rate drives reach their replacement cycle, a number of Enterprise customers are replacing them with All Flash Arrays. These All Flash products are also making their initial market entry in the video storage and CGI / media creation application space.