The LPDDR5 standard has been around for five years, with variations like Samsung’s LPDDR5 and SK Hynix’s LPDDR5T providing varying levels of performance and power efficiency. Despite this, the primary LPDDR specifications haven’t seen updates, but that is soon to change.
As per ET News, the JEDEC organization, overseeing memory standards, aims to officially unveil the next-generation LPDDR specifications in the third quarter of this year. This plan was purportedly deliberated in Lisbon, Portugal, during a meeting attended by 60 members of the organization.
Apart from anticipated changes like increased frequency (bandwidth) support, the LPDDR6 is positioned to play a vital role as on-device AI memory in smartphones and IT devices. This involves direct support for AI calculations in mobile devices. Given the central role of AI in modern computing, its influence on portable devices is inevitable. The only obstacle is the absence of dedicated memory for storing AI model weights, and a new low-power memory standard could address this challenge effectively.
Samsung is the sole entity that has broached the topic of the LPDDR6 standard, projecting a bandwidth of 17 GT/s, likely with the LPDDR6X variant. In the meantime, the LPDDR6 might achieve a speed of 12.8 GT/s, though this hasn’t been officially confirmed by JEDEC, Samsung, or Hynix.
Although the official specifications and drafts are yet to be released, there are indications that the initial LPDDR6 products might debut as early as next year. This accelerated timeline is attributed to robust backing from JEDEC members and key partners in the mobile industry. The Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen4 is expected to be among the pioneering products adopting LPDDR6 memory, with Samsung and SK Hynix purportedly leading in the commercialization of LPDDR6 memory.
Source: ETNews