CES 2020 | Micron already sampling DDR5 RDIMMs to partners

Development news on the DDR5 standard and its imminent release has been looming ever since early 2018, with quite a few analysts pointing to a late 2019 market launch. 2019 has come and gone and DDR5 is still nowhere to be found, but this is about to change, as Micron intends to introduce the first Registered DIMM DDR5 memories later this year.

At CES 2020, Micron announced that it is already sampling the first DDR5 RDIMMs to its industry partners. Notice that we are talking about registered modules that are used in servers, so desktop enthusiasts will probably have to wait a bit longer for the new standard, which, by the way, is not yet supported by any of Intel’s or AMD’s platforms.

The new DDR5 RDIMMs are manufactured using Micron’s industry leading 1znm process, which essentially doubles memory density while improving reliability and performance. Micron estimates that the performance gains over the current 1600/3200 DDR4 standard are around 85%. Some of the new features that enable said performance gains include Duty Cycle Adjustment circuitry , on-die ECC memory, the addition of a “mirror” pin for improved DIMM signaling, CA / CS training for reduced latency, and the introduction of a new loopback mode.

Micron’s DDR5 modules for server systems are expected to ship in the second half of 2020. Desktop and laptop systems will most likely have to wait until 2021, provided AMD and Intel add requisite support.