DDR5 memory supply continues to increase

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Intel’s Alder Lake is the first mainstream platform to support DDR5 memory, and many consumers will struggle with DDR4 or DDR5 memory when purchasing 12th-generation Core series processors. However, since it went on sale at the end of last year, the price and supply of DDR5 memory have been greatly affected due to the shortage of power management IC (PMIC) and voltage regulation module (VRM).


With the increase in demand for new-generation servers, supercomputers, data centers, and other fields, the DDR5 memory ecosystem has also been driven, and major manufacturers have accelerated the pace of DDR5 memory deployment, and the output is also increasing. According to DigiTimes, the gap between the overall supply of DDR5 memory and the overall market demand continues to narrow. Compared with the consumer market, DDR5 memory will be more popular in professional markets, such as industrial control applications. Since there is still a large price difference between DDR5 and DDR4 memory, for the more price-sensitive consumer market, it will take a long time to fully popularize DDR5.

In the DDR5 era, the PMIC and VRM modules have been transferred to the memory, and the motherboard is no longer responsible for the voltage regulation of the memory modules. This makes voltage regulation of memory easy and simplifies the design and production of server motherboards with multiple memory sockets. On the other hand, the transition of memory modules has increased its complexity, requiring DRAM manufacturers to purchase PMIC and VRM components. Coinciding with the outbreak of the COVID-19 epidemic, the shortage of the semiconductor supply chain has become more serious, and PMIC and VRM components have inevitably been affected, coupled with logistics and transportation problems, which has made DDR5 memory production difficult in the past few months, which has not only pushed up prices but has also made lead times longer.

Although the DDR5 memory supply problem has eased, there is still a long way to go before it can be popularized in the consumer market.

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