South Korea Has Unveiled The World’s First 6th-Gen DRAM Chip With 30% Less Power Consumption

The world’s first sixth-generation DRAM chip was introduced by SK Hynix, the second-largest memory chip manufacturer in South Korea, marking a significant technological advancement. By employing the smallest node in the world to create a dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) chip, the business has surpassed Samsung Electronics in this endeavor. The first-ever 16Gb Double Data Rate 5 (DDR5) chip, powered by the 1c node, represents a major advancement in memory process technology.

Designed for high-performance data centers, the 1c DDR5 chip offers an 11% increase in operating speed over the previous generation. According to SK Hynix, major production is anticipated to begin by the end of this year. Furthermore, the chip’s power efficiency has been increased by more than 9%, which might result in a 30% decrease in data center electricity expenses. This is a crucial development because artificial intelligence (AI) applications are driving up energy consumption.

The company’s dedication to innovation was highlighted by Kim Jonghwan, Head of DRAM Development at SK Hynix: “We are dedicated to providing differentiated value to our customers by applying the 1c technology with the best performance and cost competitiveness to our next-generation products.”

This new DRAM technology overcomes the major obstacles related to reducing nodes and offers the industry’s most extreme scaling of the 10-nanometer process. In order to accomplish this, SK Hynix improved upon their fifth-generation 1b technology. Samsung had intended to start producing 1c DRAM this year, but it has not provided any new information. Samsung had previously declared that it had successfully achieved mass production of 1b-nanometer DRAM in 2023.

The development of high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, which provide quicker data processing and have grown in significance due to the AI boom, depends on the race to attain smaller processing nodes. SK Hynix wants to continue to be the industry leader in DRAM and a reliable source of AI memory solutions even as competition intensifies.