Samsung could be looking to shave precious millimetres off of its upcoming Galaxy S6 smartphone thanks to a new memory module.
The South Korean firm has announced that it’s kicking off production of the world’s first ePoP package – a component that promises slimmer smartphones and bigger batteries.
ePoP stands for ‘embedded package on package’ memory. It’s by no means a new technology, but it’s only now becoming readily available for the consumer market.
Samsung says its ePoP modules save ‘a significant amount of space’, and will give OEMs – itself included – the chance to use the spare room for handset improvements i.e. a more svelte chassis, or improved battery capacity.
With ePoP, you’re looking at around a 40 per cent decrease in total area used – 225 square millimetres, down from 374.5 square millimetres.
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Although having failed to mention the S6 by name, with the future flagship phone just around the corner Samsung has confirmed the ePoP module will be primarily used in ‘high-end’ smartphones.
It’s worth noting however that Samsung has already announced higher data transfer rate LPDDR4 mobile DRAM, which could take precedence over the LPDDR3 ePoP module for the Galaxy S6.
Jeeho Baek, Samsung’s Senior VP of Memory Marketing, said: “By offering our new high-density ePoP memory for flagship smartphones, Samsung expects to provide its customers with significant design benefits, while enabling faster and longer operation of multi-tasking features.”
“We plan to expand our line-up of ePoP memory with packages involving enhancements in performance and density over the next few years, to further add to the growth of premium mobile market.”
What is ePoP?
Right now, smartphones use two separate packages to provide memory to the user.
The first is a ‘PoP’ module – this combines your mobile’s application processor (AP) with DRAM in a single module. The second is an eMMC (embedded multi-media card) – that’s your local storage.
Both of these modules are built into the phone in a relatively space-inefficient way, but provide an AP, RAM, and storage.
What’s different about ePoP is that if offers just one single package that consists of all three components.
Samsung’s new high-density ePoP unit contains 3GB of LPDDR3 DRAM, a 32GB eMMC, and space for an application processor all on one package.
