Matt Margolis is predicting that Apple will be switching from DDR3 to DDR4 RAM for future MacBooks this year, suggesting faster performance and improved battery-life.
One of Apple’s RAM manufacturer. Micron, says that DDR3 bandwidth tops out at around 17GB/s, while DDR4 aims to double this by 2015:
The company has not given specific targets for improved battery-life, but says that it aims to reduce power consumption in both active and standby modes.
Since the introduction of the iPhone, the industry has responded with an evolutionary transition from 2.6 GB/s LPDDR1, to 8.5 GB/s LPDDR2, to 17 GB/s LPDDR3, the technology currently is powering today’s high-end devices in volume production. DRAM bandwidth has roughly doubled with each generation to keep pace with demand.
The next generation of low-power DRAM (LPDRAM)—also known as LPDDR4—addresses these constraints by doubling the bandwidth of LPDDR3 while maintaining power neutrality. For example, LPDDR4 targets 34 GB/s of total bandwidth for a x64 memory subsystem, doubling the bandwidth target from LPDDR3