What would they use after DDR4?

[Raghar]

I seen in tech documents that DDR4 basically hit the limit, and when they want to use something faster, they'd need to rework few things. So the question is what they would use as DDR5/or some type of new stuff?

 

[mhenley]

By my guess, we'll find out in about 5 years. DDR3 was released in 2008, which is why I came up with that number.

From a technological standpoint, I'm guessing a completely different memory controller that is back to being built into the Northbridge, with a greater number of pins. The next-gen memory modules might even be small sockets to satisfy the pin count. My best guess would also be that we will see capacities much larger than we have right now, especially when you consider how much we're able to cram into a micro-USB drive. Then again, as solid state drives and their controllers improve we may see a decrease in the need for system RAM since transfer speeds may possibly exceed what is needed to properly execute programs.

Personally, I'm excited to see what the next few years have to offer.

 

[chx]

ReRAM, PRAM, MRAM, NRAM, FRAM . Maybe. These are up-and-coming for a great many years now, who knows whether they'll be market viable.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resistive_random-access_memory
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-change_RAM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetoresistive_random-access_memory
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nano-RAM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferroelectric_RAM

 

[Raghar]

I wonder if CPU wouldn't be connected to RAM slot by an optical wire. That would solve the pin problem, and it would allow great backward compatibility.

 

[evilsofa]

Why not just have the RAM stacked on the CPU die itself?

http://www.realworldtech.com/intel-dram/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/11/21/intel_converging_memory_and_cpus/

 

[tonyyy]

so you would rather have ram on-die with cpu???

what if you find out you need more ram?

then you gotta buy a new CPU??

how much is that CPU going to cost you with ram on it?

 

[Tsumi]

Why not just have the RAM stacked on the CPU die itself?

http://www.realworldtech.com/intel-dram/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/11/21/intel_converging_memory_and_cpus/

Cost is the primary reason.

 

[The Lurker]

My vote is on no ram at all.

Solid state memory is going to advance so far that your hard drive and ram will be the same device.

 

[haz_mat]

I don't remember where I read this, but I heard that one possibility involved moving the some of the controller circuitry on-die with the memory. The modules would then communicate with the CPU via parallel serial links similar to PCI express, although optimized for memory of course. I think the point of this was to get tighter timings and more control over available bandwidth than simply adding more channels.

 

[drescherjm]

My vote is on no ram at all.

Solid state memory is going to advance so far that your hard drive and ram will be the same device.

I thought most of the new technologies were slower than current DRAM ram but faster than flash.