Samsung has started mass-producing the first 16GB LPDDR5 DRAM chips

In the same way that Samsung makes most of the best smartphone displays — even those in Apple’s iPhones — they also make many of the RAM chips used by other OEMs in their handsets. Advancements made by the South Korean company led to the first phones with 12GB of RAM, and now 16GB versions are on the horizon.

The first phone to ship with the 16GB DRAM package will be a variant of the Galaxy S20 Ultra, just in case you wanted to spend even more money on what is already an insanely expensive product. Right now, it’s questionable whether phones really need even a full 8GB of memory, so we’re not sure what Samsung is planning to do with double that amount. “Enhanced 5G and AI features including graphic-rich gaming and smart photography,” apparently. Most modern laptops and PCs don’t boast that kind of memory muscle.

The new LPDDR5 DRAM hardware features eight 12Gb chips and four 8Gb chips capable of 5,500Mb/s, which is about 1.3 times faster than last-generation LPDDR4X counterparts. An up to 20% increase in energy efficiency is also promised by the chipset based on the third-generation 10nm process. Android may not be ready for it necessarily, but phones with 16GB of RAM are coming.