As the 2022 flagship SoC representative, Qualcomm new Snapdragon 8 and MediaTek Tianji 9000 are unquestionable, of which Tianji 9000 although the mass production time is late, but the overall energy efficiency ratio is better, the actual game performance is even above the new Snapdragon 8, MediaTek's high-end counterattack road finally saw the dawn.
Tianji 9000 backward compatible with LPDDR5 memory
Among them, Tianji 9000 has a must-kill skill compared to the new Snapdragon 8, that is, the first support for the new LPDDR5X memory annotation. Unfortunately, this is not mandatory, the first batch of listed Tianji 9000 mobile phones, such as OPPO Find X5 Pro Tianji version is still equipped with LPDDR5 memory, and the Redmi K50 Tianji 9000 version released tonight is also very likely.
So, as the legendary next-generation memory, what is special about the LPDDR5X?
Evolution from LPDDR5 to LPDDR5X
The LPDDR5 memory standard was announced in February 2019, and was officially mass-produced in 2020 with the Snapdragon 865 mobile platform, and both time nodes were earlier than the DDR5 memory applicable to the PC platform, allowing the smartphone to experience a "first" and "exclusive" feeling. In fact, the previous generation of LPDDR4 (LPDDR4X) also landed in the consumer market before DDR4, which shows that the technology iteration speed of smart phones has exceeded the PC to a certain extent.
Since the Prefetch read bits of DDR5 memory have also been upgraded to 16bit, it is superior to LPDDR5 in almost all performance indicators. Of course, except for power consumption, the VDDQ voltage of DDR5 is still 1.1V, while the VDDQ voltage of LPDDR5 is further reduced to 0.5V.
The difference between LPDDR5 and LPDDR4X
Compared with the previous generation of LPDDR4X, LPDDR5 has been upgraded in 3 main aspects. First of all, LPDDR4X only supports single Bank Group mode, while LPDDR5 supports multi-Bank Group mode, which we can understand as data transmission from single lane to multi-lane, which further improves the transmission data bandwidth; secondly, the data transmission rate of LPDDR5 is increased from 4266MT/s to 5500MT/s and 6400MT/s, and the transmission bandwidth is further increased; finally, The VDDQ voltage of the LPDDR5 is 0.1V lower than the LPDDR4X, and it also introduces DVFSC and DVFSQ functions that can switch to a lower 0.3V voltage at low speeds, further reducing power consumption.
The question is, when the phone has the same capacity and speed of the LPDDR5 memory chip built-in, the performance between them must be the same?
The answer, of course, is no.
Samsung, for example, its LPDDR5 memory contains at least 2 processes and 3 capacity of the wafer version, such as D1y process of 8Gb and 12Gb, and D1z process (using extreme ultraviolet EUV lithography technology) of 12Gb and 16Gb, etc., the new process can make the wafer size shrink by about 18% compared with the previous generation, and the power consumption is slightly reduced.
In addition, the capacity units of the above memory chips are all "Gb", and the actual capacity of each 8Gb, 12G, and 16Gb chips is 1GB, 1.5GB, and 2GB, respectively.
The memory chip built into the smartphone seems to be only 1, but it is actually packaged by stacking multiple chips. Taking the 16GB LPDDR5 memory chip as an example, it can be packaged from 8 D1y 12Gb chips and 4 D1y 8Gb chips, or directly from 8 D1z 16Gb chips, the performance performance is obviously better, and it can further reduce heat generation, reduce power consumption and encroach on the internal space of the mobile phone.
New LPDDR5X changes
The new LPDDR5X is a memory standard officially released by the JEDEC Solid State Storage Association at the end of July 2021 and developed by JEDEC's JC-42.6 Low Power Memory Subcommittee, an optional extension to the LPDDR5 focused on improving performance, power consumption, and flexibility to improve memory performance in applications including 5G communication performance, automotive high-resolution augmented reality/virtual reality, and edge computing using AI. Compared to the existing full-blood version of LPDDR5-6400 memory, the LPDDR5X has the following 3 improvements:
1. The bandwidth is increased from 6400MT/s to 8533MT/s;
2. TX/RX equalization improves signal integrity;
3. Improve reliability through new adaptive refresh management.
LPDDR5X is backward compatible with LPDDR5, simplifying the development cycle for SoCs and supporting new memory platforms that can coexist and complement each other in the market. It should be noted that not all 5G SoCs support the "full blood version" of LPDDR5X-8533 memory, such as MediaTek Tianji 9000 only supports LPDDR5X-7500 for the time being, but even so, its performance is 17% faster than the full blood version of LPDDR5-6400, and the latency is reduced by 15%.
At present, Samsung and Micron have achieved mass production of LPDDR5X memory. Among them, Samsung's LPDDR5X uses a 14nm DRAM process, a single chip capacity of up to 16Gb, up to the highest can be composed of up to 64GB capacity specifications, the official said that its energy consumption is about 20% lower than LPDDR5, aiming to promote the further growth of high-speed data service applications including 5G, AI, meta-universe.
Micron is one step faster than Samsung, the first semiconductor manufacturer in the industry to send samples and verify the industry's fastest and most advanced mobile memory, and has shipped the first batch of 1α node-based LPDDR5X samples (7500MT/s version), and completed the verification of Micron's LPDDR5X DRAM memory on the MediaTek Tianji 9000 platform.
As for who is stronger in Samsung and Micron's LPDDR5X memory, how much performance can this new memory particle help the next generation of flagship mobile phones, or need to wait for the actual product to be mass-produced and listed before making an accurate judgment.