DDR4 Should be with us in 2013

Micron, the memory manufacturer, announced this week that the next RAM type, DDR4 memory, will hit personal computers next year. Micron have already begun to distribute samples of the new memory to manufacturers.

We are being advised that DDR4 memory will be more efficient in energy consumption. Early figures are saying they will consume about 20% less energy than DDR3 and twice as fast as the DDR3 memory type currently in use. They will also have a higher range of clock frequencies and data transfer rates.

The new forms of DDR will come first to servers and desktop computers, and then afterwards we will see them in laptops, which will probably come at a pretty penny.

Micron expects DDR4 memory will also be used on mobile devices, such as tablets, which currently use DDR2 and DDR3 memory types.

At this point it is believed that DDR4 will not be directly compatible with earlier types of RAM due to different signaling voltages, timings, physical interface, and other factors. The chances are, motherboard manufacturers will accomodate this once DDR4 starts to become popular.

The first DDR4 was announced by Samsung back in 2011 and they said that it would reach the consumer market in 2014, one year later than Micron are now claiming. Hopefully gamers will be getting their hands on this a bit sooner than first thought.