TLDR "thanks to the more exacting specifications and shorter trace lengths used by a CAMM-style connector, Samsung says it’s possible to have modular and swappable LPDDR5 memory at last."
Wonderful news. I dreaded the time when I'll have to buy a new laptop and the only options will be ones with soldered RAM.
Looks like an LGA-style connector except with alignment pins and screws for tension instead of an ILM.
Edit: The basic connector design appears to be very similar to Samtec's GMI range: https://www.samtec.com/products/gmi including the actual contact array apparently being double-sided, so it would appear that the base board for these would also just have a land pattern. So if you damage some of the contacts, the "compression interposer" should be cheap and easy to replace.
Great potential enhancement. Double the bus width and much higher clocks.
I was thinking this was truly tiny, but (ignoring the cutoff corners) it's still 1800 mm², whereas so-dimms are 2028mm². Much denser since it's 128 bit, but not tiny tiny.
With LPCAMM we could finally have 128GB LPDDR Memory on Laptop, and possibly 256GB down the line, within this decade.
With 20A, 18A, and other Chipset and Tiles coming in the next few years. There will be entire class of computing that used to be exclusive to Desktop can now be done on Laptop.
Glad to see some innovation on the mechanical side and more modularity.
Hopefully they will do the same for memory eventually, although I'd really prefer they just do more RasPi style MicroSD as boot drive systems.
I wonder if the same principle can be DIYed or brought down in at all. If you clamp a flex PCB down with screws, directly face to face on a regular PCB, will it make good enough contact?
Probably, but I would think you'd need to use a paste stencil to raise the PCB contacts evenly above the solder mask layer since it's not quite flush, or just get the board pre-tinned.
Didn't think of that one, that could definitely be an issue. I suppose if you're DIYing them you could probably just hand tin them, at least with flex PCBs.
Or, if you're doing OneWire based modules, just only use 3 contacts so evenness is less important.
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[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 26.1 ms ] threadWonderful news. I dreaded the time when I'll have to buy a new laptop and the only options will be ones with soldered RAM.
In other words, I think more laptops that have ddr5 will switch to lpddr5 than laptops using lpddr5 will switch to lpcamm version of lpddr5.
Edit: The basic connector design appears to be very similar to Samtec's GMI range: https://www.samtec.com/products/gmi including the actual contact array apparently being double-sided, so it would appear that the base board for these would also just have a land pattern. So if you damage some of the contacts, the "compression interposer" should be cheap and easy to replace.
I was thinking this was truly tiny, but (ignoring the cutoff corners) it's still 1800 mm², whereas so-dimms are 2028mm². Much denser since it's 128 bit, but not tiny tiny.
With 20A, 18A, and other Chipset and Tiles coming in the next few years. There will be entire class of computing that used to be exclusive to Desktop can now be done on Laptop.
Hopefully they will do the same for memory eventually, although I'd really prefer they just do more RasPi style MicroSD as boot drive systems.
I wonder if the same principle can be DIYed or brought down in at all. If you clamp a flex PCB down with screws, directly face to face on a regular PCB, will it make good enough contact?
Or, if you're doing OneWire based modules, just only use 3 contacts so evenness is less important.