Micron's new 128GB DDR5-8000 RDIMMs use huge 32Gb DRAM dies

Micron has just announced its new 128GB DDR5 RDIMMs that are capable of operating at 8000 MT/s today, where they'll enter mass production in 2024.

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The company recently started fabricating its new 32Gb monolithic DDR5 dies, with its mature 1β technology, Micron says its new 32Gb monolithic DDR5 dies have over 45% more bit density, reaching speeds of up to 8000 MT/s as well as having more aggressive timing latencies compared to the regular JEDEC specs. Micron is flexing its 1β process here, claiming it's up to 24% more energy efficient than the competitors' 3DS TSV technology.

Micron not using 3DS TSV also allows for lower AI training times, with 1β allowing Micron to optimize the data input buffers and critical I/O circuits better, as well as reducing the pin capacitance on the data lines. The benefit? Higher speeds and lower power consumption. You can see in the chart above that Micron has increased its monolithic die density by 100% every 3 years or so; where we last had 24Gb in 2022, and now at the tail end of 2023 we have 32Gb dies.

Micron is also looking forward, with the chart below teasing the future of its memory... and boy, is it exciting.

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Micron will its next-gen HBM4 memory drop sometime in the second half of 2025, while HBM4E will arrive sometime towards the end of 2027. HBM4E will be exciting to see, with capacities of up to 64GB (compared to just 24GB with HBM3E). HBM4 won't be too far behind, offering capacities of 36GB to 48GB.

• more than 45% improved bit density
• up to 24% improved energy efficiency
• up to 16% lower latency
• up to a 28% improvement in AI training performance

Dr. Dimitrios Ziakas, vice president of Intel's Memory and IO Technologies explains: "Our latest 4th Gen AMD EPYC processors will benefit from optimized memory capacity per core with Micron's 128GB RDIMMs, which use 32Gb monolithic DRAM to provide an improved total cost of ownership solution for business-critical data enterprise workloads, such as AI, high-performance computing and virtualization. As AMD advances compute with our next-gen EPYC processors, Micron's 128GB RDIMMs will likely become one of the main memory options to deliver high-capacity and bandwidth per core capabilities to address the demands of memory-intensive applications".

Dan McNamara, senior vice president and general manager, Server Business Unit, AMD explained: "We look forward to Micron's 32Gb-based 128GB RDIMM for the bandwidth and performance-per-watt solution benefits available in the server and AI systems market. Intel is evaluating this 32Gb memory offering for key DDR5 server platforms based on the resulting total cost of ownership benefits to cloud, AI, and enterprise customers"