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Samsung Develops Power-Sipping DDR4 Memory
Alex writes with this excerpt from TechSpot: "Samsung Electronics has announced that it completed development of the industry's first DDR4 DRAM module last month, using 30nm class process technology, and provided 1.2V 2GB DDR4 unbuffered dual in-line memory modules (UDIMM) to a controller maker for testing. The new DDR4 DRAM module can achieve data transfer rates of 2.133Gbps at 1.2V, compared to 1.35V and 1.5V DDR3 DRAM at an equivalent 30nm-class process technology, with speeds of up to 1.6Gbps. In a notebook, the DDR4 module reduces power consumption by 40 percent compared to a 1.5V DDR3 module. The module makes use of Pseudo Open Drain (POD) technology, which allows DDR4 DRAM to consume just half the electric current of DDR3 when reading and writing data."
In a typical notebook, how much power does memory actually consume compared to other components (CPU, HD, screen, wireless transmitter etc..)?
I just bought my Sandy Bridge rig, now they announce this?! Ffffffuuuuuuuuu-
Now, lets pair this with a ARM core and hope we get a reasonable hack that allows a wireless that does not eat power like the current ones.....
Then lets enjoy our ARM-puter: Portable, powerful, and battery for more than a day of use.
Most power goes to the CPU, HDD and WiFi devices. The power consumption of the RAM is minimal.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Does anyone else besides me hate that term?
PatPending (talking to friend on phone during a bash help session): It's called Pseudo Open Drain (POD) technology
Friend: Okay, I'll try that...
Friend(typing): sudo open drain
Friend: Argh! I hate this command line bullshit!
What one fool can do, another can. (Ancient Simian Proverb)
What's up with the pseudo-open drain? Is that new and exciting or just marketing speak? I know what open drain is, but how do you have a "pseudo" open drain?
Visit the
One thing not mentioned in the article or summary is whether or not this technology reduces standby power consumption in DRAM. Under normal use, especially if you have a lot of memory in your system, the standby power consumption is going to matter as much as read/write, if not more.
Monstar L
You're a faggot.
I'd rather have them finally mass-produce 8 and 16 GB modules for the desktop market.
... in 2015 when linux has 0.9% market share as usual.
Yes but what you don't know is that in 2012 a freak anomaly occurs and every man on Earth becomes spontaneously pregnant. Thus with a booming population of 22 billion people (triplets were very common) a 1% marketshare* equates 220 million people - quite a respectable figure.
* of total populace since every person now has a computer.
What about latency?
POD addresses this by actively pulling up at the beginning of a rising edge, then releasing the pullup to avoid a bus contention later. This reduces the termination current (at some cost in impedance mismatch, but it's already a sloppy line) and improved switching symmetry.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
POD by itself doesn't reduce power consumption in standby, since both POD and SSTL turn off the bus drivers then. The older POD technologies from the GDDR families use Thevenin termination, though, so the terminators draw a lot of unnecessary current when they're enabled (as distinct from the result with a dedicated termination supply.)
If you really want to know how this all works, JEDEC has the DDR4 standard available for free download. Follow the "free standards" link.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
And you play a faggot.
Blow that pipe some more!
You don't measure power consumption in volts, it's in kWh
You measure power consumption in W, and power consumed in kWh, so your pedantic correction is also incorrect. However, assuming the resistance is equal (incorrect, but a good enough approximation), then the more Volts, the more Watts, and the fewer Volts, the fewer Watts. So you don't measure power or power consumption in Volts, but you can compare power consumption in Volts if resistances remain similar. And that's more convenient for this discussion.
Learn to love Alaska
So you don't measure power or power consumption in Volts, but you can compare power consumption in Volts if resistances remain similar.
Cool, there aren't so many of us left who still use ECL. A recent project had a single flip-flop consuming a constant 1/8 watt IIRC. A nice little one bit memory, with jitter so low you can hardly measure it. I'm pretty sure I read a data sheet on a SiGe LVPECL part with cycle to cycle switching jitter specified in femtoseconds. The beauty of constant power draw.
Aside from that, I'm not sure why we're talking about resistive-load DRAM.