Samsung, SK hynix race to commercialize LPDDR6 for next-gen AI phones

Samsung Electronics and SK hynix are racing to expand the applications of LPDDR6 — the next-generation low-power DRAM — in mobile environments as the market prepares to take off. Samsung has completed validation of LPDDR6 on Qualcomm's new mobile AI chip platform, the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 Extreme.

SK hynix, which announced the completion of its own LPDDR6 development in March, is also seeking design wins centered on flagship smartphones. Industry observers say the company is looking to supply the Chinese smartphone market first as a strategy to secure an early foothold in the next-generation low-power memory segment.

Both companies are pushing beyond the smartphone market — where conventional LPDDR has long been the mainstay — into on-device AI. LPDDR can be bundled into server-grade modules known as SOCAAM, and its low-power, high-efficiency profile makes it well suited for AI chips that process data locally without routing through the cloud.

According to industry sources, Samsung became the first in the industry to validate 16GB LPDDR6 on Qualcomm's recently released Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 Extreme, achieving input/output speeds of up to 10.7 Gbps.

Samsung first developed LPDDR6 — a first for the industry — in November last year. The chip delivers memory bandwidth of up to 114 GB per second, underpinned by improved per-pin I/O speeds and an expanded I/O architecture.

Power efficiency has also been enhanced through real-time control of power consumption based on computational load, improving efficiency by up to 21 percent compared with the previous-generation LPDDR5X.

Of late, as LPDDR6 finds new applications in on-device AI environments, fine-grained power management has become critical alongside sustained performance. On-device AI — which operates without relying on large cloud infrastructure — is evolving beyond single-function tasks into AI agents capable of simultaneously handling diverse inputs such as text, images and voice.

Samsung said the successful validation on Qualcomm's Snapdragon platform demonstrates its technological capabilities, adding that collaboration from the earliest stages of product development allowed it to meet the requirements of next-generation mobile environments.

"It is deeply meaningful that Samsung, having been the first in the industry to develop LPDDR6, has now successfully completed quality validation on Qualcomm's next-generation platform," said Choi Jang-seok, senior vice president of the product planning team at Samsung's memory business division. "Having again demonstrated our technological competitiveness and product quality, we will deliver high-performance, low-power memory solutions in line with our customers' and the market's commercialization timelines, and lead the next-generation AI device market."

Competition between the two global memory giants is intensifying as the LPDDR6 market prepares to open up. The chip currently accounts for a small share of the overall LPDDR market, but robust growth is forecast for the latter half of the 2020s.

According to market research firm Omdia, LPDDR6's share of total LPDDR shipments — just 3 percent in 2027 — is projected to climb to 9 percent in 2028, 21 percent in 2029 and 39 percent by 2030. LPDDR is broadening its reach beyond mobile devices into AI PCs, edge computing and automotive applications, driven by its high performance and power efficiency.

SK hynix announced in March that it had successfully developed a 16Gb LPDDR6 chip using a 10-nanometer-class sixth-generation (1c) process, and disclosed plans for mass production in the second half of this year.

SK hynix has also improved data processing speed and power efficiency over its previous products to optimize the chip for on-device AI. Bandwidth expansion has increased the volume of data transferred per unit of time, boosting processing speed by 33 percent compared with LPDDR5X. Operating speed exceeds 10.7 Gbps as a baseline, surpassing the maximum of its predecessor.

SK hynix is expected to supply LPDDR6 to Xiaomi for its next-generation flagship smartphones when mass production begins in the second half of the year. The company has consistently supplied mobile DRAM to Xiaomi. The move is seen as a strategy to maintain dominance in the Chinese market through next-generation products amid intensifying competition from CXMT.