World enews: Samsung announces its next-gen RAM for phones and ‘the metaverse’

Samsung has announced its next-generation RAM tech made for mobile devices, which it says can be used in future smartphones but also in servers, cars, and “the metaverse.” While Samsung’s press release doesn’t mention how its new LPDDR5X RAM chips could help people enter the “digital reality,” the tech should help make devices run faster and last longer.

Putting the buzzwords like metaverse, AI, and 5G aside, Samsung is promising some real improvements to speed and power usage: it says its next-gen RAM will have 1.3-times faster processing speeds versus the previous-gen LPDDR5, will be capable of higher densities (up to 64GB per chip), and will use 20 percent less power than the last generation. Some of these improvements, according to Samsung, can be chalked up to the new 14nm process it’s using to create the chips. Also, for all the ribbing about the metaverse, lower-power draw and better performance could actually help with AR and VR headsets with onboard processors or phones that are driving those devices.

Samsung didn’t immediately respond to a request for clarification about the improvements of the 14nm process versus its previous-gen RAM chips, which it marketed as “10nm-class,” meaning that the process was between 10nm and 20nm.

Samsung doesn’t say when its LPDDR5X RAM chips will be available to manufacturers (including Samsung’s phone division), but AnandTech has speculated that they’ll start showing up in devices around 2023. As with regular-power DDR5, which is making its way to desktop computers, it’s not likely that you’ll be able to immediately notice a massive generational leap between devices using LPDDR5 and LPDDR5X memory. However, it’s these kinds of improvements that help our devices get better and better with each generation, and it’s nice to see Samsung pushing one of the less exciting aspects of a phone’s performance forward — even if it’s using vague promises about the metaverse to sell it.