Samsung today announced it has doubled the capacity of currently available DDR4 SO-DIMMs. The Korean chip manufacturer today revealed it started mass production of DDR4 SO-DIMMs with a capacity of 32GB. For now, they are only compatible with laptops powered by AMD Ryzen processors.
The 32GB DIMMs are possible thanks to new 16 Gigabit (2GB) DDR4 SDRAM chips manufactured using a 10nm process. Eight of these 2GB chips can fit on the front of a Small Outline Dual In-line Memory Module (SO-DIMM). Another eight chips can fit on the back, making a total of 16 chips, of 2GB each. Combined they create the 32GB capacity on a single SO-DIMM.
It's predecessors were 8 Gbit (1GB) chips that were available since 2014 and were based on a 20nm process. Also 16 of these 1GB chips could fit on a single SO-DIMM. Combined they made a 16GB capacity possible.
SO-DIMMs are mainly used on game laptops which are usually thicker and thus have more room for the SO-DIMM sockets. Often they have 2 SO-DIMM sockets, which means that with the new 32GB DIMMs it's possible to fit 64GB of RAM in such a device. Thin laptops usually don't have SO-DIMM sockets, instead they regularly have the memory chips soldered on the main board to save space and costs.
Not all mobile CPUs are compatible with SO-DIMMs, e.g. most mobile Intel processors only work with SDRAM. Samsung has only listed AMD Ryzen processors to be compatible with the new 64GB DIMMs.
It's unknown when the new chips become available. Samsung also hasn't provided any pricing information on the new chips.
SODIMMS are about half as long as conventional DIMMS and are especially designed for usage in devices with limited space. This is mainly laptops but SO-DIMMs can also be found in some NAS devices, routers and high-end office printers.
