As the wider DRAM market sputters along, the mobile DRAM segment is firing on all cylinders, scrambling to keep pace with the volume demand and bandwidth requirements of the fast-moving markets it serves.

 Mobile DRAMs are specialized DRAMs that incorporate low-power features. Vendors of the devices, such as Elpida, Hynix, Micron and Samsung, face inventory shortfalls as OEMs of hot-selling smartphones and tablets race through the stock now on the shelves. Elpida Memory Inc. alone is shifting much of its production from PC DRAM to mobile DRAM to meet demand from Apple Inc.’s iPad 2, sources said.

 At the same time, mobile market bandwidth requirements are lapping the capabilities of current-generation mobile DRAM technology, forcing a lane change to next-gen standards.

 The requirements for bandwidth are going through the roof,” said Jim Venable, president of the Serial Port Memory Technology (SPMT) consortium, a group that is devising a next-generation memory technology. Low-power double-data-rate 2 (LPDDR2) mobile DRAM, the latest and fastest mobile DRAM technology, “is already seeing the end of its life,” Venable said.

Various factions have rolled out rival next-gen mobile DRAM technologies in response to the urgent need for more bandwidth. The contenders are LPDDR3, LPDDR4, the Mobile Industry Processor Interface Alliance’s M-PHY, Rambus’ Mobile XDR, Silicon Image’s SPMT and wide I/O. Samsung and others are backing wide I/O; Micron is pushing LPDDR3.

By: DocMemory
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