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LPCAMM2 is a modular, repairable, upgradeable memory standard for laptops

374 points by leduyquang753 3y ago

mmastrac 3y ago
Ugh, finally. And it's not just a repurposed desktop memory standard either! The overall space requirements look to be similar to the BGA that you'd normally solder on (perhaps 2-3x as thick?). I'm sure they can reduce that overhead going forward. I love the disclosure at the bottom: Full Disclosure: iFixit has prior business relationships with both Micron and Lenovo, and we are hopelessly biased in favor of repairable products.
- cjk2 3y ago
  Yeah they even gloss over Lenovo's crappy soldered on the motherboard USB-C connectors which is always the weak point on modern thinkpads. Well that and Digital River (Lenovo's distributor) carries absolutely no spare parts at all for any Lenovos in Europe, and if they do they only rarely turn up, so you can't replace any replaceable bits because you can't get any.
  - chpatrick 3y ago
    Have you tried https://www.lenovopartsales.com/LenovoEsales https://www.lenovopartsales.com/LenovoEsales ?
  - sspiff 3y ago
    Digital River is shit at everything. From spare parts, to delivery and tracking, to customer communications, to warranty claims. Every single interaction with them is a nightmare. It is the single reason I prefer to buy Lenovo from resellers rather than directly.
- Aurornis 3y ago
  > Ugh, finally. FYI, the '2' at the end is because this isn't the first time this has been done. :) LPCAMM spec has been out for a while. LPCAMM2 is the spec for next-generation parts. Don't expect either to become mainstream. It's relatively more expensive and space-consuming to build an LPCAMM motherboard versus dropping the RAM chips directly on to the motherboard.
  - nrp 3y ago
    My recollection of this is that LPCAMM was a proposal from Dell that they put into the JEDEC standardization process, and LPCAMM2 is the resulting standard, named that way to avoid confusion with the non-standard LPCAMM that Dell trialed on a small number of commercial systems.
    - Tuna-Fish 3y ago
      Almost. The Dell proposal is called CAMM, which was slightly modified during the JEDEC process and standardized as CAMM2, which is the combined with the memory type the same way DIMM was, For example LPDDR5X CAMM2 or DDR5 CAMM2. LPCAMM2 is not a name used in any JEDEC standard or even referred to anywhere on their site, but it seems to be used by both the memory manufacturers and the users because it's less of a mouthful, and they feel there needs to be more to distinguish between LPDDR5 CAMM2 and DDR5 CAMM2 because they are not electrically compatible.
  - audunw 3y ago
    Not to mention putting the RAM directly on a System-in-Package chip like Apple does now. That's going to be unbeatable in terms of space and possibly have an edge when it comes to power consumption too. I wouldn't be surprised if future standards will require on-package RAM. I kind of wish we could establish a new level in the memory hierarchy. Like, just make a slot where you can add slower more power hungry DDR RAM that acts as a big cache for the NVM storage, or that the OS can offload some of the stuff in main memory if it's not used much. It could be unpopulated in base models, and then you can buy an upgrade to stick in there to get some extra performance later if needed.
    - burutthrow1234 3y ago
      This is kind of what Optane was in some incarnations (it's really terrible branding that conflates multiple technologies).
baby_souffle 3y ago
This is fantastic news. Hopefully the cost to manufacturers is only marginal and they find a suitable replacement for their current "each tier in RAM comes with a 5-20% price bump" pricing scheme. Too bad apple is almost guaranteed to not adopt the standard. I miss being able to upgrade the ram in macbooks.
- cjk2 3y ago
  Given enough pressure ...
  - armarr 3y ago
    You mean pressure from regulators, surely. Because 99% of consumers will not notice or know the difference in a spec sheet.
  - colinng 3y ago
    They will maliciously comply. They might even have 4 sockets for the 512-bit wide systems. But then they’ll keep the SSD devices soldered - just like they’ve done for a long time. Or cover them with epoxy, or rig it with explosives. That’ll show you for trying to upgrade! How dare you ruin the beautiful fat profit margin that our MBAs worked so hard to design in?!?
    - 7speter 3y ago
      Apple lines perimeter of the nand chips on modern mac minis with an array of tiny capacitors, so even the crazy people with heater boards can’t unsolder the nand and replace them with higher density NAND.
      - wtallis 3y ago
        Have you not looked at the NAND packages on any regular SSDs? Tiny decoupling caps alongside the NAND is pretty standard practice.
      - cjk2 3y ago
dvh 3y ago
What's wrong with DIMM?
- mmastrac 3y ago
  The size, the sockets, the heat distribution, etc, etc, etc.
- linsomniac 3y ago
  It requires too much power, according to the article. This allows using "LP" (Low Power) parts to be removable, they normally have to be soldered on board close to the CPU because of the low voltage tolerances.
- armarr 3y ago
  Larger footprint, taller, longer traces and signal degradation in the connectors.
- rangerelf 3y ago
  There's nothing _wrong_ with it, it performs according to spec, but it has limitations: trace length, power requirements, signal limitations, heat, etc.
- adgjlsfhk1 3y ago
  One of the biggest problems is that edge connections don't give you enough density. Edge connections are great for serves where you stack 16 channels next to each other, but in a laptop form factor, your capacity is already limited, so you can get more wires coming out of the ram by connecting to the face rather than the edge.
- 0x457 3y ago
  There is literally an entire section explaining why LPDDR needs to be soldered down as close as possible to the memory controller.
- magicalhippo 3y ago
  The physical size of the socket and having the connections on the edge means you're forced to have much longer traces. Longer traces means slower signalling and more power loss due to higher resistance and parasitics. This[1] Anandtech article from last year has a better look at how the LPCAMM module works. Especially note how the connectors are now densely packed directly under the memory chips, significantly reducing the trace length needed. Not just on the memory module itself but also on the motherboard due to the more compact memory module. It also allows for more pins to be connected, thus higher bandwidth (more bits per cycle). [1]: https://www.anandtech.com/show/21069/modular-lpddr-becomes-a-reality-samsung-introduces-lpcamm-memory-modules https://www.anandtech.com/show/21069/modular-lpddr-becomes-a...
farmdve 3y ago
Remember that Haswell laptops were the last to feature socketed CPUs. RAM is nice to upgrade, for sure. As well as an SSD, but CPUs are still a must. I would even suggest upgradeable GPUs but I don't think the money is there for the manufacturers. Why allow you to upgrade when you can buy a whole new laptop?
- leduyquang753 3y ago
  The Framework laptop 16 features replaceable GPU.
  - farmdve 3y ago
    These are very obscure, or perhaps I mean to say niche laptop manufacturers. We need this standard for all of them, HP, Lenovo, Acer etc.
    - nwah1 3y ago
      Framework open sources most of their schematics, if I understand correctly. So it should be possible for others to use the same standard, if they wanted to. (they don't want to)
      - nrp 3y ago
        Published here: https://github.com/FrameworkComputer/ExpansionBay https://github.com/FrameworkComputer/ExpansionBay
      - Dylan16807 3y ago
        The form factor isn't great for being a vendor-neutral thing. If we can convince the companies to actually try for compatibility, then a revival of MXM is probably a significantly better option.
        Manabu-eo 3y ago
        MXM was problematic because the inflexibility of the form factor to upgrade a given system. If your laptop size, power and cooling was designed for a gtx1030 you couldn't replace it with a gtx1080 module. In framework's case, the cooling is integrated in the gpu module, and both it's size, cooling and power deliver can be adjusted depending on the gpu power.
mithrilskeleton 3y ago
Cant wait to see this in a framework laptop
- OJFord 3y ago
  For the presumed improvement to battery life? Because Fw already uses SO-DIMMs.
  - wmf 3y ago
    It's also faster (7500 vs. 5600).
  - universa1 3y ago
    That's also nice, but the memory speed is also higher, Ddr5-7266 vs 5600 iirc. The resulting higher bandwidth translates more or less directly into more performance for the iGPU.
orev 3y ago
I’m glad they explained why RAM has become soldered to the board recently. It’s easy to be cynical and assume they were doing it for profit motive purposes (which might be a nice side effect), but it’s good to know that there’s also a technical reason to solder it. Even better to know that it’s been recognized and a solution is being worked on.
- drivingmenuts 3y ago
  The problem is getting manufacturers to implement the new RAM standard. While the justifications given are great for the consumer, I didn't see any reason for a manufacturer to sign on. They are going to lose money when people buy new RAM, rather than a whole new laptop. While processor speeds and size haven't plateaued yet, it's going to take a while to develop significant new speed upgrades and in the meantime, the only other upgrade is disk size/long-term storage, which, aside from Apple, they don't totally control. So, why should they relenquish that to the user?
  - bugfix 3y ago
    Even if it's just Lenovo using these new modules, I still think it's a win for the consumer (if the modules aren't crazy expensive).
  - cesarb 3y ago
    > While the justifications given are great for the consumer, I didn't see any reason for a manufacturer to sign on. [...] So, why should they relenquish that to the user? It makes sense that the first ones to use this new standard would be Dell and Lenovo. They both have "business" lines of computers, which usually offer on-site repairs (they send the parts and a technician to your office) for a somewhat long time (often 3 or 5 years). To them, it's a cost advantage to make these computers easier to repair. Having the memory (which is a part which not rarely fails) in a separate module means they don't have to replace and refurbish the whole logic board, and having it easy to remove and replace means less time used by the on-site technician (replacing the main logic board or the chassis often means dismantling nearly everything until it can be removed).
zxcvgm 3y ago
I remember when Dell was the first to introduce [1] these Compression Attached Memory Modules in their laptops in an attempt to move away from soldered-on RAM. Glad this is now being more widely adopted and standardized. [1] https://www.pcworld.com/article/693366/dell-defends-its-controversial-new-laptop-memory.html https://www.pcworld.com/article/693366/dell-defends-its-cont...
- AlexDragusin 3y ago
  > The first iteration, known as CAMM, was an in-house project at Dell, with the first DDR5-equipped CAMM modules installed in Dell Precision 7000 series laptops. And thankfully, after doing the initial R&D to make the tech a reality, Dell didn’t gatekeep. Their engineers believed that the project had such a good chance at becoming the next widespread memory standard that instead of keeping it proprietary, they went the other way and opened it up for standardization.
  - jimbobthrowawy 3y ago
    Trying to make it a standard is one of the least surprising things about it. You want accessories/components in your product to be as commodity as possible to drive costs down.
ThinkBeat 3y ago
Meanwhile Apple bakes the RAM,CPU,GPU all into the same "chip". Good luck with that.
- colinng 3y ago
  Don’t forget - they solder in the flash too even though there is no technical reason to do so. Unless “impossibly far profit margin” is a technical requirement.
  - mschuster91 3y ago
    > Don’t forget - they solder in the flash too even though there is no technical reason to do so. There is, Apple uses flash memory as swap to get away with low RAM specs, and the latency and speed required for that purpose all but necessitates putting the flash memory directly next to the SoC.
    - wmf 3y ago
      This is not really true; Apple's SSDs are no faster than off-the-shelf premium NVMe SSDs.
      - wtallis 3y ago
        And the latency of flash memory is several orders of magnitude higher than even the slowest interconnect used for internal SSDs.
      - Rohansi 3y ago
        Yeah but some people need to justify their $1,800 USD purchase of laptop that comes with only 8 GB of RAM. Even though most laptops manufactured today would also come with NVMe (PCIe directly connected to the CPU, usually) flash storage, which is used by all operating systems as swap.
        mschuster91 3y ago
oneplane 3y ago
On the other hand, with a reflow station everything becomes modular and repairable. I do hope that a more widespread usage of compressed attachment gives us some development in that area where projects that were promising modular devices failed (remember those 'modular' phone concepts? available physical interconnects were one of the failures...). Sockets for BGAs have existed for a while, but were not really end-user friendly (not that LGA or PGA are that amazing), so maybe my hope is misplaced and many-contact connections will always be worse than direct attachment (be it PCB or SiP/SoC/CPU shared substrate).
- jcotton42 3y ago
  > On the other hand, with a reflow station everything becomes modular and repairable. Not for the average person.
  - redeeman 3y ago
    true, but can the average person replace the innertube on a bicycle wheel? :)
    - pezezin 3y ago
      Yes? I did it many, many times as a kid, it is not that difficult.
      - lazide 3y ago
        I suspect the poster would argue you’re not average - possibly even because you’re on HN to say so.
- zokier 3y ago
  > On the other hand, with a reflow station everything becomes modular and repairable. until you hit custom undocumented unobtainium proprietary chips. good luck repairing anything with those.
- RetroTechie 3y ago
p0w3n3d 3y ago
Apple hates it
zokier 3y ago
I wonder if this will bring a new widely available high-performance connector to the wider market. SO-DIMM connectors have been occasionally repurposed to other uses, most notably by Raspberry Pi Compute Models 1-3 among other similar SOM/COM boards. RPi CM4 switched to 2x 100pin mezzanine connectors; maybe some future module could use CAMM connectors, I'd imagine they are capable enough
- wmf 3y ago
  The compression connector looks flimsier than a mezzanine so it should probably be a last resort for multi-gigahertz single-ended signaling.
Tran84jfj 3y ago
I would welcome something like Raspberry Pi compute module, that contains CPU+RAM and communicates with other parts via PCIE. This standard can last decades! Yet another standard for memory will just fail.
sharpshadow 3y ago
Is it possible to have both LPDDR and LPCAMM2 in use at the same time?
- wtallis 3y ago
  LPCAMM2 is a connector and form factor standard for modules carrying LPDDR type memory chips.
  - masklinn 3y ago
    I assume they mean having some memory soldered and an expansion slot. I've seen laptops like that, with e.g. 8GB soldered and a sodimm slot.
    - sharpshadow 3y ago
      That would be nice since there is a rise of CPU+RAM and even GPU I think all on one chip. Would be interesting to be able to upgrade RAM on maschines like that.
Dwedit 3y ago
Can it become loose then suddenly not have all pins attached properly? This is something that's unlikely to happen with SODIMM slots, but I've seen so many times when screw receptacles fail.
cryptonector 3y ago
Yes please. Also, can we haz ECC?
- seanp2k2 3y ago
  Why are you trying to bankrupt Intel??? Without being able to charge 5x as much for Xeons for ECC support, why would anyone ever pony up for one?
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
kristianp 3y ago
So this is going into the ThinkPad P1 (Gen 7), which is too expensive and power hungry for my use cases. How long until it filters down into less expensive SKUs? Are we talking next years generation? Ifixit also links to a repair guide: https://www.ifixit.com/Device/Lenovo_ThinkPad_P1_Gen_7 https://www.ifixit.com/Device/Lenovo_ThinkPad_P1_Gen_7
- CoolCold 3y ago
  My personal understanding - for Thinkpads, it's next year. I guess Lenovo is making real-life testes with P1 here, gather feedback before addressing other families like T14/T14s
PTOB 3y ago
The current Dell version of this: upgrade to 64GB is $1200. Found this the hard way when trying to get my engineering team what I thought would be a $200 upgrade per machine from their stock 32GB Precision laptop workstations.
userbinator 3y ago
A bit of a disingenious argument intended to sell this as being more revolutionary than it really is --- BGA sockets already exist for LPDDR as well as other things like CPUs/SoCs, but they're very expensive due to low volumes. If the volume went up, they'd go down in price significantly just like LGA sockets for CPUs have. https://www.ironwoodelectronics.com/products/lpddr/ https://www.ironwoodelectronics.com/products/lpddr/
snvzz 3y ago
I see no mention of ECC. It worries me.
quailfarmer 3y ago
I'm sure this will find use in Business-Class "Mobile workstations", but having integrated DDR4 in my own hardware, I have a hard time seeing this as the mainstream path forward for mobile computing. There's lots of value in tight integration. Improved signal integrity (ie, faster), improved reliability, better thermal flow, smaller packaging, and lower cost. Do I really want to compromise all of those things just to make RAM upgrades easier? And how many times do I need to upgrade the RAM in a laptop, really? Twice? Why make all those sacrifices to use a connector, instead of just reworking the DRAM parts? A robotic reflow machine is not so complex that a small repair shop couldn't afford one, which is what you see if you to to parts of the world where repair is taken seriously. Why do I need to be able to do it at home? I can't re-machine my engine at home. It's the most advanced nanotechnology humanity can produce, why is a $5k repair setup unreasonable? This is not to mention the direction things are really going, DRAM on Package/Die. The signaling speed and bus widths possible with co-packaged memory and HBM are impossible to avoid, and I'm not going to complain about the fact that I can't upgrade the RAM separately from the CPU, any more than I complain about not being able to upgrade my L2 cache today. The memory is part of the compute, in the same way the GPU memory is part of the GPU. I hope players like iFixit and Framework aren't too stubborn in opposing the tight integration of modern platforms. "Repairable" doesn't need to mean the same thing it did 10 years ago, and there are so many repairability battles that are actually worth fighting, that being stubborn about the SOTA isn't productive.
- Timshel 3y ago
  >I'm sure this will find use in Business-Class "Mobile workstations", but having integrated DDR4 in my own hardware, I have a hard time seeing this as the mainstream path forward for mobile computing. Don't know would say the reverse, workstation might need the performance of DRAM on Package/Die, but I don't believe it's the case for mainstream user. > A robotic reflow machine Same maybe to service enterprise customer but probably way too expensive for mainstream. I certainly hope that players continue to oppose tight integration and I'll try to support them. I value the ability that anyone can swap ram and disks to easily upgrade or repair their device more than an increase of performance or even battery life. I recently cobbled up a computer for a friend's child with component from three different computers; any additional cost would have made the exercise worthless.
sharpshadow 3y ago
Would it be possible to have LPCAMM2 as external device tru thunderbolt?
- noodlesUK 3y ago
  No, RAM is not something that is exposed on the PCIe bus (which is what thunderbolt is based on). RAM has a different protocol (DDR5 in this case), and as it says in the article, is very sensitive to the distance between the CPU and the RAM. External RAM isn't really something that is viable in the modern era of computers as far as I know.
  - simcop2387 3y ago
    Surprisingly this is something starting to show up in the server market lately with a new protocol/tech called CXL. But yea that latency issue is still there over the distance but it'll let more remote memory type stuff start to happen. I doubt you'll do more than a few meters (i.e. within the same rack) ever but it'll likely end up getting used for so called "hyperscaler" type companies to more flexibly allocate resources, similar to how they're doing PCIe over ethernet with DPU devices right now. Unlikely that this will end up at the consumer level anytime even medium term because that kind of flexibility is still just so niche but we might see some CXL connectivity eventually for things like GPUs or other accelerators to have more memory or share better between host and accelerator. EDIT: article about a tech demo of it on a laptop actually, hadn't seen this before: https://www.techradar.com/pro/even-a-laptop-can-run-ram-externally-thanks-to-a-little-known-tech-called-cxl-but-its-not-for-sale-to-mere-mortals-who-only-want-1tb-of-ram https://www.techradar.com/pro/even-a-laptop-can-run-ram-exte...
- 6SixTy 3y ago
  Only CXL has the potential to be outsourced to Thunderbolt, as it works off PCIe and system RAM does not. CXL (Compute eXpress Link) is a server grade technology that's really aimed at solving some problems within the high performance compute area, like cache coherency. If you don't get it, I don't either tbh.
hinkley 3y ago
> LPDDR operates at lower voltages compared to DDR, giving it the edge in power efficiency. But, the lower voltage makes signal integrity between the memory and processor challenging, Why can't the signaling channels use a higher voltage and control circuitry on the memory stick step up and step down the gain to access the memory module?

374 points by leduyquang753 3y ago

Ugh, finally. And it's not just a repurposed desktop memory standard either! The overall space requirements look to be similar to the BGA that you'd normally solder on (perhaps 2-3x as thick?). I'm sure they can reduce that overhead going forward. I love the disclosure at the bottom: Full Disclosure: iFixit has prior business relationships with both Micron and Lenovo, and we are hopelessly biased in favor of repairable products.

cjk2 3y ago
Yeah they even gloss over Lenovo's crappy soldered on the motherboard USB-C connectors which is always the weak point on modern thinkpads. Well that and Digital River (Lenovo's distributor) carries absolutely no spare parts at all for any Lenovos in Europe, and if they do they only rarely turn up, so you can't replace any replaceable bits because you can't get any.
- chpatrick 3y ago
  Have you tried https://www.lenovopartsales.com/LenovoEsales https://www.lenovopartsales.com/LenovoEsales ?
- sspiff 3y ago
  Digital River is shit at everything. From spare parts, to delivery and tracking, to customer communications, to warranty claims. Every single interaction with them is a nightmare. It is the single reason I prefer to buy Lenovo from resellers rather than directly.
Aurornis 3y ago
> Ugh, finally. FYI, the '2' at the end is because this isn't the first time this has been done. :) LPCAMM spec has been out for a while. LPCAMM2 is the spec for next-generation parts. Don't expect either to become mainstream. It's relatively more expensive and space-consuming to build an LPCAMM motherboard versus dropping the RAM chips directly on to the motherboard.
- nrp 3y ago
  My recollection of this is that LPCAMM was a proposal from Dell that they put into the JEDEC standardization process, and LPCAMM2 is the resulting standard, named that way to avoid confusion with the non-standard LPCAMM that Dell trialed on a small number of commercial systems.
  - Tuna-Fish 3y ago
    Almost. The Dell proposal is called CAMM, which was slightly modified during the JEDEC process and standardized as CAMM2, which is the combined with the memory type the same way DIMM was, For example LPDDR5X CAMM2 or DDR5 CAMM2. LPCAMM2 is not a name used in any JEDEC standard or even referred to anywhere on their site, but it seems to be used by both the memory manufacturers and the users because it's less of a mouthful, and they feel there needs to be more to distinguish between LPDDR5 CAMM2 and DDR5 CAMM2 because they are not electrically compatible.
- audunw 3y ago
  Not to mention putting the RAM directly on a System-in-Package chip like Apple does now. That's going to be unbeatable in terms of space and possibly have an edge when it comes to power consumption too. I wouldn't be surprised if future standards will require on-package RAM. I kind of wish we could establish a new level in the memory hierarchy. Like, just make a slot where you can add slower more power hungry DDR RAM that acts as a big cache for the NVM storage, or that the OS can offload some of the stuff in main memory if it's not used much. It could be unpopulated in base models, and then you can buy an upgrade to stick in there to get some extra performance later if needed.
  - burutthrow1234 3y ago
    This is kind of what Optane was in some incarnations (it's really terrible branding that conflates multiple technologies).

baby_souffle 3y ago

This is fantastic news. Hopefully the cost to manufacturers is only marginal and they find a suitable replacement for their current "each tier in RAM comes with a 5-20% price bump" pricing scheme. Too bad apple is almost guaranteed to not adopt the standard. I miss being able to upgrade the ram in macbooks.

cjk2 3y ago
Given enough pressure ...
- armarr 3y ago
  You mean pressure from regulators, surely. Because 99% of consumers will not notice or know the difference in a spec sheet.
- colinng 3y ago
  They will maliciously comply. They might even have 4 sockets for the 512-bit wide systems. But then they’ll keep the SSD devices soldered - just like they’ve done for a long time. Or cover them with epoxy, or rig it with explosives. That’ll show you for trying to upgrade! How dare you ruin the beautiful fat profit margin that our MBAs worked so hard to design in?!?
  - 7speter 3y ago
    Apple lines perimeter of the nand chips on modern mac minis with an array of tiny capacitors, so even the crazy people with heater boards can’t unsolder the nand and replace them with higher density NAND.
    - wtallis 3y ago
      Have you not looked at the NAND packages on any regular SSDs? Tiny decoupling caps alongside the NAND is pretty standard practice.
    - cjk2 3y ago

dvh 3y ago

What's wrong with DIMM?

mmastrac 3y ago
The size, the sockets, the heat distribution, etc, etc, etc.
linsomniac 3y ago
It requires too much power, according to the article. This allows using "LP" (Low Power) parts to be removable, they normally have to be soldered on board close to the CPU because of the low voltage tolerances.
armarr 3y ago
Larger footprint, taller, longer traces and signal degradation in the connectors.
rangerelf 3y ago
There's nothing _wrong_ with it, it performs according to spec, but it has limitations: trace length, power requirements, signal limitations, heat, etc.
adgjlsfhk1 3y ago
One of the biggest problems is that edge connections don't give you enough density. Edge connections are great for serves where you stack 16 channels next to each other, but in a laptop form factor, your capacity is already limited, so you can get more wires coming out of the ram by connecting to the face rather than the edge.
0x457 3y ago
There is literally an entire section explaining why LPDDR needs to be soldered down as close as possible to the memory controller.
magicalhippo 3y ago
The physical size of the socket and having the connections on the edge means you're forced to have much longer traces. Longer traces means slower signalling and more power loss due to higher resistance and parasitics. This[1] Anandtech article from last year has a better look at how the LPCAMM module works. Especially note how the connectors are now densely packed directly under the memory chips, significantly reducing the trace length needed. Not just on the memory module itself but also on the motherboard due to the more compact memory module. It also allows for more pins to be connected, thus higher bandwidth (more bits per cycle). [1]: https://www.anandtech.com/show/21069/modular-lpddr-becomes-a-reality-samsung-introduces-lpcamm-memory-modules https://www.anandtech.com/show/21069/modular-lpddr-becomes-a...

farmdve 3y ago

Remember that Haswell laptops were the last to feature socketed CPUs. RAM is nice to upgrade, for sure. As well as an SSD, but CPUs are still a must. I would even suggest upgradeable GPUs but I don't think the money is there for the manufacturers. Why allow you to upgrade when you can buy a whole new laptop?

leduyquang753 3y ago
The Framework laptop 16 features replaceable GPU.
- farmdve 3y ago
  These are very obscure, or perhaps I mean to say niche laptop manufacturers. We need this standard for all of them, HP, Lenovo, Acer etc.
  - nwah1 3y ago
    Framework open sources most of their schematics, if I understand correctly. So it should be possible for others to use the same standard, if they wanted to. (they don't want to)
    - nrp 3y ago
      Published here: https://github.com/FrameworkComputer/ExpansionBay https://github.com/FrameworkComputer/ExpansionBay
    - Dylan16807 3y ago
      The form factor isn't great for being a vendor-neutral thing. If we can convince the companies to actually try for compatibility, then a revival of MXM is probably a significantly better option.
      - Manabu-eo 3y ago
        MXM was problematic because the inflexibility of the form factor to upgrade a given system. If your laptop size, power and cooling was designed for a gtx1030 you couldn't replace it with a gtx1080 module. In framework's case, the cooling is integrated in the gpu module, and both it's size, cooling and power deliver can be adjusted depending on the gpu power.

mithrilskeleton 3y ago

Cant wait to see this in a framework laptop

OJFord 3y ago
For the presumed improvement to battery life? Because Fw already uses SO-DIMMs.
- wmf 3y ago
  It's also faster (7500 vs. 5600).
- universa1 3y ago
  That's also nice, but the memory speed is also higher, Ddr5-7266 vs 5600 iirc. The resulting higher bandwidth translates more or less directly into more performance for the iGPU.

orev 3y ago

I’m glad they explained why RAM has become soldered to the board recently. It’s easy to be cynical and assume they were doing it for profit motive purposes (which might be a nice side effect), but it’s good to know that there’s also a technical reason to solder it. Even better to know that it’s been recognized and a solution is being worked on.

drivingmenuts 3y ago
The problem is getting manufacturers to implement the new RAM standard. While the justifications given are great for the consumer, I didn't see any reason for a manufacturer to sign on. They are going to lose money when people buy new RAM, rather than a whole new laptop. While processor speeds and size haven't plateaued yet, it's going to take a while to develop significant new speed upgrades and in the meantime, the only other upgrade is disk size/long-term storage, which, aside from Apple, they don't totally control. So, why should they relenquish that to the user?
- bugfix 3y ago
  Even if it's just Lenovo using these new modules, I still think it's a win for the consumer (if the modules aren't crazy expensive).
- cesarb 3y ago
  > While the justifications given are great for the consumer, I didn't see any reason for a manufacturer to sign on. [...] So, why should they relenquish that to the user? It makes sense that the first ones to use this new standard would be Dell and Lenovo. They both have "business" lines of computers, which usually offer on-site repairs (they send the parts and a technician to your office) for a somewhat long time (often 3 or 5 years). To them, it's a cost advantage to make these computers easier to repair. Having the memory (which is a part which not rarely fails) in a separate module means they don't have to replace and refurbish the whole logic board, and having it easy to remove and replace means less time used by the on-site technician (replacing the main logic board or the chassis often means dismantling nearly everything until it can be removed).

zxcvgm 3y ago

I remember when Dell was the first to introduce [1] these Compression Attached Memory Modules in their laptops in an attempt to move away from soldered-on RAM. Glad this is now being more widely adopted and standardized. [1] https://www.pcworld.com/article/693366/dell-defends-its-controversial-new-laptop-memory.html https://www.pcworld.com/article/693366/dell-defends-its-cont...

AlexDragusin 3y ago
> The first iteration, known as CAMM, was an in-house project at Dell, with the first DDR5-equipped CAMM modules installed in Dell Precision 7000 series laptops. And thankfully, after doing the initial R&D to make the tech a reality, Dell didn’t gatekeep. Their engineers believed that the project had such a good chance at becoming the next widespread memory standard that instead of keeping it proprietary, they went the other way and opened it up for standardization.
- jimbobthrowawy 3y ago
  Trying to make it a standard is one of the least surprising things about it. You want accessories/components in your product to be as commodity as possible to drive costs down.

ThinkBeat 3y ago

Meanwhile Apple bakes the RAM,CPU,GPU all into the same "chip". Good luck with that.

colinng 3y ago
Don’t forget - they solder in the flash too even though there is no technical reason to do so. Unless “impossibly far profit margin” is a technical requirement.
- mschuster91 3y ago
  > Don’t forget - they solder in the flash too even though there is no technical reason to do so. There is, Apple uses flash memory as swap to get away with low RAM specs, and the latency and speed required for that purpose all but necessitates putting the flash memory directly next to the SoC.
  - wmf 3y ago
    This is not really true; Apple's SSDs are no faster than off-the-shelf premium NVMe SSDs.
    - wtallis 3y ago
      And the latency of flash memory is several orders of magnitude higher than even the slowest interconnect used for internal SSDs.
    - Rohansi 3y ago
      Yeah but some people need to justify their $1,800 USD purchase of laptop that comes with only 8 GB of RAM. Even though most laptops manufactured today would also come with NVMe (PCIe directly connected to the CPU, usually) flash storage, which is used by all operating systems as swap.
      - mschuster91 3y ago

oneplane 3y ago

On the other hand, with a reflow station everything becomes modular and repairable. I do hope that a more widespread usage of compressed attachment gives us some development in that area where projects that were promising modular devices failed (remember those 'modular' phone concepts? available physical interconnects were one of the failures...). Sockets for BGAs have existed for a while, but were not really end-user friendly (not that LGA or PGA are that amazing), so maybe my hope is misplaced and many-contact connections will always be worse than direct attachment (be it PCB or SiP/SoC/CPU shared substrate).

jcotton42 3y ago
> On the other hand, with a reflow station everything becomes modular and repairable. Not for the average person.
- redeeman 3y ago
  true, but can the average person replace the innertube on a bicycle wheel? :)
  - pezezin 3y ago
    Yes? I did it many, many times as a kid, it is not that difficult.
    - lazide 3y ago
      I suspect the poster would argue you’re not average - possibly even because you’re on HN to say so.
zokier 3y ago
> On the other hand, with a reflow station everything becomes modular and repairable. until you hit custom undocumented unobtainium proprietary chips. good luck repairing anything with those.
RetroTechie 3y ago

p0w3n3d 3y ago

Apple hates it

zokier 3y ago

I wonder if this will bring a new widely available high-performance connector to the wider market. SO-DIMM connectors have been occasionally repurposed to other uses, most notably by Raspberry Pi Compute Models 1-3 among other similar SOM/COM boards. RPi CM4 switched to 2x 100pin mezzanine connectors; maybe some future module could use CAMM connectors, I'd imagine they are capable enough

wmf 3y ago
The compression connector looks flimsier than a mezzanine so it should probably be a last resort for multi-gigahertz single-ended signaling.

Tran84jfj 3y ago

I would welcome something like Raspberry Pi compute module, that contains CPU+RAM and communicates with other parts via PCIE. This standard can last decades! Yet another standard for memory will just fail.

sharpshadow 3y ago

Is it possible to have both LPDDR and LPCAMM2 in use at the same time?

wtallis 3y ago
LPCAMM2 is a connector and form factor standard for modules carrying LPDDR type memory chips.
- masklinn 3y ago
  I assume they mean having some memory soldered and an expansion slot. I've seen laptops like that, with e.g. 8GB soldered and a sodimm slot.
  - sharpshadow 3y ago
    That would be nice since there is a rise of CPU+RAM and even GPU I think all on one chip. Would be interesting to be able to upgrade RAM on maschines like that.

Dwedit 3y ago

Can it become loose then suddenly not have all pins attached properly? This is something that's unlikely to happen with SODIMM slots, but I've seen so many times when screw receptacles fail.

cryptonector 3y ago

Yes please. Also, can we haz ECC?

seanp2k2 3y ago
Why are you trying to bankrupt Intel??? Without being able to charge 5x as much for Xeons for ECC support, why would anyone ever pony up for one?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

kristianp 3y ago

So this is going into the ThinkPad P1 (Gen 7), which is too expensive and power hungry for my use cases. How long until it filters down into less expensive SKUs? Are we talking next years generation? Ifixit also links to a repair guide: https://www.ifixit.com/Device/Lenovo_ThinkPad_P1_Gen_7 https://www.ifixit.com/Device/Lenovo_ThinkPad_P1_Gen_7

CoolCold 3y ago
My personal understanding - for Thinkpads, it's next year. I guess Lenovo is making real-life testes with P1 here, gather feedback before addressing other families like T14/T14s

PTOB 3y ago

The current Dell version of this: upgrade to 64GB is $1200. Found this the hard way when trying to get my engineering team what I thought would be a $200 upgrade per machine from their stock 32GB Precision laptop workstations.

userbinator 3y ago

A bit of a disingenious argument intended to sell this as being more revolutionary than it really is --- BGA sockets already exist for LPDDR as well as other things like CPUs/SoCs, but they're very expensive due to low volumes. If the volume went up, they'd go down in price significantly just like LGA sockets for CPUs have. https://www.ironwoodelectronics.com/products/lpddr/ https://www.ironwoodelectronics.com/products/lpddr/

snvzz 3y ago

I see no mention of ECC. It worries me.

quailfarmer 3y ago

I'm sure this will find use in Business-Class "Mobile workstations", but having integrated DDR4 in my own hardware, I have a hard time seeing this as the mainstream path forward for mobile computing. There's lots of value in tight integration. Improved signal integrity (ie, faster), improved reliability, better thermal flow, smaller packaging, and lower cost. Do I really want to compromise all of those things just to make RAM upgrades easier? And how many times do I need to upgrade the RAM in a laptop, really? Twice? Why make all those sacrifices to use a connector, instead of just reworking the DRAM parts? A robotic reflow machine is not so complex that a small repair shop couldn't afford one, which is what you see if you to to parts of the world where repair is taken seriously. Why do I need to be able to do it at home? I can't re-machine my engine at home. It's the most advanced nanotechnology humanity can produce, why is a $5k repair setup unreasonable? This is not to mention the direction things are really going, DRAM on Package/Die. The signaling speed and bus widths possible with co-packaged memory and HBM are impossible to avoid, and I'm not going to complain about the fact that I can't upgrade the RAM separately from the CPU, any more than I complain about not being able to upgrade my L2 cache today. The memory is part of the compute, in the same way the GPU memory is part of the GPU. I hope players like iFixit and Framework aren't too stubborn in opposing the tight integration of modern platforms. "Repairable" doesn't need to mean the same thing it did 10 years ago, and there are so many repairability battles that are actually worth fighting, that being stubborn about the SOTA isn't productive.

Timshel 3y ago
>I'm sure this will find use in Business-Class "Mobile workstations", but having integrated DDR4 in my own hardware, I have a hard time seeing this as the mainstream path forward for mobile computing. Don't know would say the reverse, workstation might need the performance of DRAM on Package/Die, but I don't believe it's the case for mainstream user. > A robotic reflow machine Same maybe to service enterprise customer but probably way too expensive for mainstream. I certainly hope that players continue to oppose tight integration and I'll try to support them. I value the ability that anyone can swap ram and disks to easily upgrade or repair their device more than an increase of performance or even battery life. I recently cobbled up a computer for a friend's child with component from three different computers; any additional cost would have made the exercise worthless.

sharpshadow 3y ago

Would it be possible to have LPCAMM2 as external device tru thunderbolt?

noodlesUK 3y ago
No, RAM is not something that is exposed on the PCIe bus (which is what thunderbolt is based on). RAM has a different protocol (DDR5 in this case), and as it says in the article, is very sensitive to the distance between the CPU and the RAM. External RAM isn't really something that is viable in the modern era of computers as far as I know.
- simcop2387 3y ago
  Surprisingly this is something starting to show up in the server market lately with a new protocol/tech called CXL. But yea that latency issue is still there over the distance but it'll let more remote memory type stuff start to happen. I doubt you'll do more than a few meters (i.e. within the same rack) ever but it'll likely end up getting used for so called "hyperscaler" type companies to more flexibly allocate resources, similar to how they're doing PCIe over ethernet with DPU devices right now. Unlikely that this will end up at the consumer level anytime even medium term because that kind of flexibility is still just so niche but we might see some CXL connectivity eventually for things like GPUs or other accelerators to have more memory or share better between host and accelerator. EDIT: article about a tech demo of it on a laptop actually, hadn't seen this before: https://www.techradar.com/pro/even-a-laptop-can-run-ram-externally-thanks-to-a-little-known-tech-called-cxl-but-its-not-for-sale-to-mere-mortals-who-only-want-1tb-of-ram https://www.techradar.com/pro/even-a-laptop-can-run-ram-exte...
6SixTy 3y ago
Only CXL has the potential to be outsourced to Thunderbolt, as it works off PCIe and system RAM does not. CXL (Compute eXpress Link) is a server grade technology that's really aimed at solving some problems within the high performance compute area, like cache coherency. If you don't get it, I don't either tbh.

hinkley 3y ago

> LPDDR operates at lower voltages compared to DDR, giving it the edge in power efficiency. But, the lower voltage makes signal integrity between the memory and processor challenging, Why can't the signaling channels use a higher voltage and control circuitry on the memory stick step up and step down the gain to access the memory module?