Big laptop RAM change
New laptops will soon feature a different RAM stick than the type that has been used for 25 years.
PC World reports the memory group that homologates RAM standards, Jedec, is currently finalising the new Compression Attached Memory Module (CAMM) spec.
The CAMM design was developed by Dell and first introduced in laptops in April 2022, including the latest Dell XPS 15 machines.
It was initially misunderstood to be proprietary, causing a furore in the tech community about the potential for customers to be locked into Dell’s ecosystem.
But it later came to light that Dell developed the new module intending to have it adopted by all manufacturers.
CAMM’s primary advantage over SO-DIMM is a higher memory density that can scale with ever-increasing clock speeds.
This infographic shows the basic design of Dell’s CAMM RAM sticks
A video by Linus Tech Tips (LTT) in November 2022 explained the technicalities of the issue and why CAMM could be very good for memory advancements.
SO-DIMM suffers from signal integrity degradation due to the distance between the RAM module’s chips and the processor on the mainboard. This can significantly increase memory latency.
That is why the latest and fastest memory products on the market have their dies mounted as close to the CPU as possible.
Unfortunately, this often requires that the memory be soldered to the motherboard, meaning consumers had to give up upgradeability. It also makes the repair process more difficult and expensive.
LTT said that even the largest CAMM memory reduces the distance to the CPU by 50% without sacrificing replaceability.
CAMM could even support low-power DDR RAM (LPDDR) on replaceable modules.
LPDDR6 is the preferred type of RAM on thin-and-light laptops and smartphones due to its power-saving capabilities but currently needs to be soldered onto the mainboard.
First laptops with official CAMM spec launching next year
The 20 companies in Jedec’s task group have voted unanimously to approve the CAMM 0.5 spec.
It hopes to finalise the 1.0 spec by the second half of 2023.
Laptops with the approved CAMM spec are expected to start rolling out in 2024.
Because the CAMM sticks are only mechanically different from SO-DIMMs and use the same electrical components, they are not expected to be significantly more expensive at launch.
The first CAMM sticks are expected to be DDR5 with 6,400MHz transfer speeds.
Now read: Intel launches record-setting desktop CPU — turbo frequency up to 6GHz
Loading ...