Micron DDR4 RAM rumored to improve battery life, speed in Apple's future iPhones, iPads & Macs
A mysterious $250 million payment to memory maker Micron has fueled speculation that the company's new LPDDR4 DRAM could be making its way to future Apple products, potentially as soon as its next generation of iPhone, iPad and Mac models.
Independent analyst Matt Margolis noted the mystery payment to Micron on his blog this week, where he noted that Micron purchased memory maker Elpida last July for $2 billion. Apple has been an Elpida customer for some time, and utilized its LPDDR3 DRAM in the iPhone 5s, iPad Air and latest MacBook Air last year.
Most notably, one gigabyte of Elpida's DDR3 RAM is found in Apple's custom A7 processor, which powers the iPhone 5s, iPad Air, and iPad mini with Retina display.
The unnamed customer who prepaid for some $250 million in components from Micron has a deal that runs through September 2016. That led Margolis to speculate this week that the deal could be for new Apple products expected to be introduced in late 2014 and beyond.
In promoting its LPDDR4 DRAM technology, Micron has claimed that the new memory offers greater power efficiency, boasting 10 hours of active tablet time with an 1.5 Ah battery, and 8 hours use on a phone with 1.4 Ah battery. Performance is also said to be improved with two times the bandwidth.
Those improvements could be seen in future A-series chips from Apple, perhaps as soon as an anticipated "A8" processor this year in the next generation of iPhones and iPads. It's also possible that Micron's DDR4 RAM could offer performance boosts in upcoming refreshes to Apple's MacBook lineup.
Apple has a history of prepaying for components in bulk to secure a better deal. Most notably, the company was ahead of the curve in investing in flash memory as it ramped up production of the iPhone, iPad and new Macs built on speedy solid-state NAND flash.
Independent analyst Matt Margolis noted the mystery payment to Micron on his blog this week, where he noted that Micron purchased memory maker Elpida last July for $2 billion. Apple has been an Elpida customer for some time, and utilized its LPDDR3 DRAM in the iPhone 5s, iPad Air and latest MacBook Air last year.
Most notably, one gigabyte of Elpida's DDR3 RAM is found in Apple's custom A7 processor, which powers the iPhone 5s, iPad Air, and iPad mini with Retina display.
The unnamed customer who prepaid for some $250 million in components from Micron has a deal that runs through September 2016. That led Margolis to speculate this week that the deal could be for new Apple products expected to be introduced in late 2014 and beyond.
In promoting its LPDDR4 DRAM technology, Micron has claimed that the new memory offers greater power efficiency, boasting 10 hours of active tablet time with an 1.5 Ah battery, and 8 hours use on a phone with 1.4 Ah battery. Performance is also said to be improved with two times the bandwidth.
Those improvements could be seen in future A-series chips from Apple, perhaps as soon as an anticipated "A8" processor this year in the next generation of iPhones and iPads. It's also possible that Micron's DDR4 RAM could offer performance boosts in upcoming refreshes to Apple's MacBook lineup.
Apple has a history of prepaying for components in bulk to secure a better deal. Most notably, the company was ahead of the curve in investing in flash memory as it ramped up production of the iPhone, iPad and new Macs built on speedy solid-state NAND flash.
Comments
Yeah, and HOPEFULLY in a NEW MAC MINI! C'mon, real ease it already!!!
Apple does tend to buy in bulk and maybe they are buying LPDDR4 from Micron. What would be far more exciting is if the money to Micron (which may or may not be from Apple) were for some of their more advanced memory parts like the Hybrid Memory Cube (http://www.micron.com/products/hybrid-memory-cube).
Yeah, and HOPEFULLY in a NEW MAC MINI! C'mon guys, release it already!!
"It's also possible that Micron's DDR4 RAM could offer performance boosts in upcoming refreshes to Apple's MacBook lineup".
Yeah, and HOPEFULLY in a NEW MAC MINI! C'mon guys, release it already!!
First Generation RAM tech tends to be equivalent to previous generation performance, the difference being that they want you to pony up that "new" premium. Give it 2 years at least after launch to start seeing the fabled performance increases.
[QUOTE]LPDDR4 DRAM Memory – Why it’s Awesome for Apple Gadget Lovers
Micron highlighted their LPDDR4 DRAM memory technology presentation almost a year ago at a Mobile Forum. Some of the key targets of DRAM mobile power requirements include:
Tablets – 10 hours active with a 11.5 Ah battery
Phones – 8 hours active with a 1.4 Ah battery
Phones are targeting 10+ days of standby
Tablets in “connected standby” targeting 2+ weeks
[B][I][COLOR=blue]Another issue plaguing the Mobile power efficiency is heat sink, “Heat spreaders are being used to move heat to the case, away from the memory/processor,” this would explain give another reason why Apple has pursued sapphire screens with GT Advanced Technologies for their ultra hard makeup and their ability to dissipate heat away from the processor.[/COLOR][/I][/B]
Other key benefits of Micron’s LPDDR4 include:
[B][I][COLOR=blue]Power Neutrality
2x Bandwidth Performance (performance improvement)[/COLOR][/I][/B]
Low pin count (easy to connect)
Low cost (margin preservation!)
[/QUOTE]
Depending on availability, I can see these be used in everything from an iPad, iPhone to an AppleTV -- don't know if it is the best solution for Macs.
The next iPad and a new AppleTV could certainly benefit from more, faster RAM -- say, on an A7X or an A8 SoC package.
As discussed in other threads, there is a possibility of using the sapphire Apple is making as a substrate for other chips -- specifically SoS (Silicon on Sapphire) a form of SoI (Silicon on Insulator) that offers superior [less] current leakage and [more] heat dissipation that'd standard silicon semiconductors.
Intel will only be supporting DDR4 on Socket 2011 for the foreseeable future. All "Core" chips (except the HPDT line that Apple never used) will remain on DDR3 until Broadwell, which is not before 2015.
Well, if PCs are trucks… and iPads are cars… I guess that makes a power iPad an SUV or minivan!
It may not be special but the various manufactures have the ability to exceed others quality wise honestly if Microns RAM draws a few micro amps less than the competition it is a big advantage in mobile. Beyond that Micron has had a long relationship with Apple.
Hybrid Memory Cube would be a wonderful turn of events! The speed of this stuff is pretty incredible but you need the right interface on your processor. This is where Apples DIY designs are a big advantage, they don't need to wait for Intel to implement a Memory Cube interface on their processors. The bandwidth would be a huge plus for any machine running an integrated GPU. It would be very interesting to see Intel do a custom processor with a Memory Cube interface just for Apple.
Maybe. There are rumors about that Intel will be implementing DDR 4 in some of the Haswell refresh models. I'm not sure I believe this but it would be nice. It would make the boring Haswell refresh far more interesting. Problem is nothing on CPU-World supports those rumors.
At this point Haswell refresh comes in June. If true that could mean next year before we see a Mini with DDR4.
Does the soldered RAM in the Retina MacBook Pro support ECC like the Mac Pro? One would hope that it does, since replacing faulty memory would require replacing the entire logic board.
ECC isn't supported at the chipset level on those processors. Beyond that ECC memory can still fail. You're thinking of defective sticks causing unstable behavior, which would be more of a warranty issue. If you're out of warranty, inquire about a flat rate repair. Typically they'll quote you something around $350 to fix whatever is wrong, including a logic board. That assumes no signs of abuse and may not apply to consumable parts such as batteries. Ram is not one of the more likely points of failure though.
I think the BIGGER news is that DDR3 16 GB modules are now being produced which will work for MacBook Pros like 2011 vintage, which mean MBPs with 32 GB total!!!
http://www.intelligentmemory.com/dram-modules/ddr3-so-dimm/
A little birdie tells me OWC is working on this too...
I hope this is indeed true.
Apple needs to up its memory capacity to 2GB ( or Heck even 1.5GB ) for its 64bit SoC. Like Anand pointed out it is likely most application runs into memory bottleneck before CPU bottleneck.
The problem is the only way to get Double the Capacity while using the same power is to move to LPDDR4, and LPDDR4 isn't even going to standardize until mid 2014. Which ( I thought ) is unlikely to make it into iPhone 6......
LPDDR4 also means double the bandwidth, which means the next Apple CPU could likely benefit will even better prefetch therefore higher IPC, and GPU won't be as bandwidth limited.
The current iOS devices are quite memory limited, since iOS does not do any paging to NAND, and its memory are shared between GPU and CPU as well.
As far as i know. HMC offer substantially lower power when compared to Ultra High Bandwidth Memory Solutions. i.e The claim that it offer 70% lower power are in comparison to Multi Channel DDR / GDDR config. It is not really designed for the Mobile power usage ( Until someday it is further refined ).
Since Apple design their own SoCs I would have thought that was be an ok thing to do, unless there are licensing or IP issues.
Memory Cube would also be interesting for a follow on machine to the Apple TV that supports gaming and other apps. Wether or not Apple goes this route most likely depends upon economics. I'm not sure Memory Cube is destined for the volumes Conventional DRAM is. Still the product has interesting capabilities and I think Apple would be foolish to ignore it. Memory Cube tech could end up shipping in a future Mac Pro though. That is if Intel adopts it.
Licensing is up to the entity creating the standard. However working on the interface already is really a requirement otherwise Apple would end up shipping very out of date products. In the same way Micron and other DRAM manufactures have been designing, constructing and testing these new interfaces in their R&D labs. Eventually the standards and the designs get frozen. So whatever RAM interface Apple moves to, I'm pretty sure they have substantial development work already put into the interface on their SoC.
On a side note the Memory Cube alliance says that their devices are 70% more efficient per bit than DDR3 though they don't get into specifics about that. In reference to LPDDR 4 there is this interesting presentation: http://www.jedec.org/sites/default/files/M_Greenberg_Mobile Forum_May_ 2013_Final.pdf that still uses that funky power per bit parameter in relation to LPDDR 4 RAM. Interestingly power per bit can still be very significant, even with LPDDR, depending upon the interface implemented. Power can easily become several watts in a LPDDR RAM array, this just highlights why Apple limits the amount of RAM in its iOS devices. Too many RAM devices lead to lots of power being used especially if the bandwidth is actually out to use.
In the end Apple has a history of using LPDDR parts, however that doesn't mean they are bound to the technology. LPDDR should allow them to improve the RAM arrays in the iOS DEVICES with a minimal impact on battery life. I'm just not convinced that Apple and the industry will be ready for the launch of devices using this interface this year. The standard needs to be approved. On the other hand there is apparently shippable silicon out there waiting on the standard.
BREAKING: I-pad still needs to catch up in market! AAPL down after hours on news!
You would really have to wonder about an investor stupid enough to read these forums and then make investment decisions based upon what he reads. Sadly I think some do.