The world’s leading semiconductor company Samsung Electronics Co. has taken another leap forward in the next-generation chip fabrication technology as it began the mass production of the second-generation 8-gigabit double data rate fourth-generation dynamic random access memory chips (8Gb DDR4 DRAM) on 10-nanometer class (1y nm) process for the first time in the world.

The South Korean memory chip giant announced on Wednesday that it began mass producing the world’s smallest and highest-performing 10-nm 8Gb DRAM chips last month to meet the growing market demand for high-performance chips used in enterprise servers, mobile devices and various IT devices.

“By developing innovative technologies in DRAM circuit design and process, we have broken through what has been a major barrier for DRAM scalability,” Jin Gyo-young, president of Memory Business at Samsung Electronics, said in a statement from the company on Wednesday.

The company’s achievement comes only 21 months after it begun mass producing the first-generation 10-nm class DRAM.

The new chip, which is produced without use of an extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) technology, has improved productivity approximately 30 percent compare to the first-generation 10-nm class 8Gb DDR4, the company said in the press release.

The chipmaker applied new technologies including high-sensitivity cell data sensing system and ‘air spacer’ that have boosted performance by 10 percent and cut power consumption by 15 percent, according to the company. The new chip supports a data transfer rate of 3,600 megabits per second (Mbps) per pin versus 3,200 Mbps of the first-generation 8Gb DDR4.

The company expected the latest advancement in DRAM chip technology would speed up the development of next-generation DRAM chips and systems including DDR5, HBM3, LPDDR5 and GDDR6 used in advanced computing systems such as enterprise servers, supercomputers and high-speed graphic cards.

Samsung Electronics plans to accelerate its shift to second-generation 10-nm class DRAM chip production process but also produce more of the mainstream first-generation 10-nm class DRAM.

Samsung Electronics shares finished Wednesday at 2,544,000 won ($2,352.29), up 1.32 percent from the previous session.

By Hwang Hyung-gyu and Cho Jeehyun

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