[HN Gopher] LPCAMM2 is a modular, repairable, upgradeable memory...
___________________________________________________________________
LPCAMM2 is a modular, repairable, upgradeable memory standard for
laptops
Author : leduyquang753
Score : 207 points
Date : 2024-05-07 15:17 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.ifixit.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.ifixit.com)
| mmastrac wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Have you tried https://www.lenovopartsales.com/LenovoEsales ?
| sspiff wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| 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.
| baby_souffle wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Given enough pressure ...
| armarr wrote:
| You mean pressure from regulators, surely. Because 99% of
| consumers will not notice or know the difference in a spec
| sheet.
| colinng wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| sliken wrote:
| Apple ships 128 bit, 256 bit, and 512 bit wide memory
| interfaces on laptops (up to 1024 bit wide on desktops).
|
| Is it feasible to fit memory bandwidth like the M3 Max (512
| bits wide LPDDR5-6400) with LPCAMM2 in a thin/light laptop?
| pja wrote:
| This PDF[1] suggests that an LPCAMM2 module has a 128 bit
| wide memory interface, so the epic memory bandwidth of the M3
| max won't be achievable with one of these memory modules.
| High end devices could potentially have two or more of them
| arranged around the CPU though?
|
| [1] https://investors.micron.com/node/47186/pdf
| 7speter wrote:
| Apple could just make lower tier macbooks but mac fanboys
| wouldnt be able to ask "but what about apples quarterly
| profits?"
|
| Most macbooks dont need high memory bandwidth, most users
| are using their macs for word processing, excel and vscode.
| wmf wrote:
| For 512 bits you would need four LPCAMM2s. I could imagine
| putting two on opposite sides of the SoC but four might
| require a huge motherboard.
| jauntywundrkind wrote:
| Hoping we see AMD Strix Halo with it's 256-bit interface
| crammed into an aggressively cooled fairly-thin fairly-light.
| But it's going to require heavy cooling to make full use of.
|
| Heck, make it only run full tilt when on an active cooling
| dock. Let it run half power when unassisted.
| Aurornis wrote:
| > Too bad apple is almost guaranteed to not adopt the standard.
|
| Apple would require multiple LPCAMM2 modules to provide the bus
| width necessary for their chips. Up to 4 x LPCAMM2 modules
| depending on the processor.
|
| The size of each LPCAMM2 module is almost as big as the entire
| size of an Apple CPU combined with the unified RAM chips, so
| putting 2-4 LPCAMM2 modules on the board is completely
| infeasible without significantly increasing the size of the
| laptop.
|
| Remember, the Apple architecture is a combined CPU/GPU
| architecture and has memory bandwidth to match. It's closer to
| your GPU than the CPU in your non-Mac machine. Asking to have
| upgradeable RAM on Apple laptops is akin to almost like asking
| for upgradeable RAM on your GPU (which would not be cheap or
| easy)
|
| For every 1 person who thinks they'd want a bigger MacBook Pro
| if it enabled memory upgrades, there are many, many more people
| who would gladly take the smaller size of the integrated
| solution we have today.
| coolspot wrote:
| > like asking for upgradeable RAM on your GPU
|
| Can I please have upgradeable RAM on GPU? Pwetty pwease?
| thfuran wrote:
| Sure, as long as you're willing to pay in cost, size, and
| performance.
| kokada wrote:
| > Up to 4 x LPCAMM2 modules depending on the processor.
|
| The non-Pro/Max versions (e.g. M3) uses 128-bits, and
| arguably is the kind of notebook that mostly needs to be
| upgraded later since they commonly come with only 8GB of RAM.
|
| Even the Pro versions (e.g. M3 Pro) use up-to 256-bits, that
| would be 2 x LPCAMM2 modules, that seem plausible.
|
| For the M3 Max in the Macbook Pro, yes, 4 x LPCAMM2 would be
| impossible (probably). But I think you could have something
| like the Mac Studio have them, that is arguably also the kind
| of device that you probably want to increase memory in the
| future.
| redeeman wrote:
| and they wont so long as people buy regardless
| dvh wrote:
| What's wrong with DIMM?
| mmastrac wrote:
| The size, the sockets, the heat distribution, etc, etc, etc.
| linsomniac wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Larger footprint, taller, longer traces and signal degradation
| in the connectors.
| rangerelf wrote:
| There's nothing _wrong_ with it, it performs according to spec,
| but it has limitations: trace length, power requirements,
| signal limitations, heat, etc.
| adgjlsfhk1 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| There is literally an entire section explaining why LPDDR needs
| to be soldered down as close as possible to the memory
| controller.
| magicalhippo wrote:
| 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...
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| I'd wager for most consumers capacity is more important than
| bandwidth and the power losses are going to be small compared
| to the rest of the stack.
| bmicraft wrote:
| Bandwidth translates directly into better (igpu)
| performance
| farmdve wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| The Framework laptop 16 features replaceable GPU.
| farmdve wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Published here:
| https://github.com/FrameworkComputer/ExpansionBay
| FloatArtifact wrote:
| > The Framework laptop 16 features replaceable GPU.
|
| In a way I don't mind having non-replaceable ram in the
| framework ecosystem as an option. Put simply because the
| motherboard itself is modular and needs to be upgraded for
| the CPU. At that point though I would prefer on integrated
| ram CPU/GPU.
| freedomben wrote:
| I'm writing this from my Framework 16 with GPU and it is the
| best laptop I've ever known. It's heavy and big and not the
| most portable, but I knew that would be the case going into
| it and I have no regrets
| sojuz151 wrote:
| I would say it would make the most sense to have a replaceable
| entire ram+cpu+gpu assemble. Just have some standard form
| factors and connectors for external connectors.
|
| This way, you could keep power consumption low and be able to
| upgrade cpu to a new generation
| zamadatix wrote:
| I'm not sure I really get much value out of a socketed CPU,
| particularly in a laptop, vs something like a swappable MB+CPU
| combo where the CPU is not socketed.
|
| RAM/Storage are great upgrades because 5 years from now you can
| pop in 4x the capacity at a bargain since it's the "old slow
| type". CPUs don't really get the same growth in a socket's
| lifespan.
| immibis wrote:
| Socket AM4 had a really good run. Maybe we just have to
| pressure manufacturers to make old-socket variations of
| modern processors.
|
| The technical differences between sockets aren't usually
| huge. Upgrade the memory standard here, add or remove PCIe
| lanes there. Using new cores with an older memory controller
| may or may not be doable, but it's quite simple to not
| connect all the PCIe lanes the die supports.
| farmdve wrote:
| As I said to the comment above, it makes perfect sense. In
| 2014 we purchased a dual core Haswell. Almost a decade later
| I revive the laptop by installing more ram, an SSD and the
| best possible quad core CPU for that laptop. The gain in
| processing power were massive and made the laptop useable
| again.
| zamadatix wrote:
| I'm sure it's all subjective (e.g. I'm sure someone here
| even considers the original dual core Haswell more than
| fine without upgrade in 2024) but going from a dual core
| Haswell to a quad core Haswell (or even a generation or two
| beyond, had it been supported) as an upgrade a decade after
| the fact just doesn't seem worth it to me.
|
| The RAM/SSD sure - a 2 TB consumer SSD wasn't even a
| possible thing to buy until a year after that laptop would
| have come out and you can get that for <$100 new now. It
| won't be the highest performing modern drive but it'll
| still max out the bus and be many times larger than the
| original drive. Swap equipment 3 years from now and that's
| also still a great usable drive rather than a museum piece.
| Upgrading to a CPU that you could have gotten around the
| time the laptop came out? Sure, it has twice as many
| cores... but it still has pretty bad multi core performance
| and a god awful perf/wattage ratio to be investing new
| money on a laptop for. It's also a bit of a dead end, in 3
| years you'll now have 2 CPUs so ancient you can't really do
| much with them.
| pavon wrote:
| This matches my experience. Every PC I've built over the
| last 30 years have benefited from memory and storage
| upgrades through their life, and I've upgraded GPU a few
| times. However, every time I've looked at upgrading to
| another CPU with the same socket it is either not a big
| enough step up, or too much of a power hog relative to
| the midrange CPU I originally built with. The only time
| I've replaced CPUs is when I've fried them :)
| Night_Thastus wrote:
| On a laptop it's not very practical.
|
| Because you can't swap the motherboard, your options for CPUs
| are going to be quite limited. Generally, only higher-tier CPUs
| of that same generation - which draw more power and require
| more cooling.
|
| Generally a laptop is built designed to provide a specific
| budget of power to the CPU and has a limited amount of cooling.
|
| Even if you _could_ swap out the CPU, it wouldn 't work
| properly if the laptop couldn't provide the necessary power or
| cooling.
| farmdve wrote:
| I can't say I agree. Back in 2014 a laptop was purchased with
| a dual-core haswell CPU. 8 years later I revive the laptop by
| upgrading the CPU to almost the best possible CPU, which is a
| 4-core 8 thread CPU or 4-core 4 threads, I am unsure which of
| these it was, but the speed boost was massive. This is how
| you keep old tech alive.
|
| And the good thing about mobile CPUs is that they have almost
| the same TDP across the various dual-quad versions(or
| whatever is the norm today).
| Rohansi wrote:
| How old was the new CPU though? Probably the same or
| similar generation to what it originally came with since
| the socket needs to be the same.
|
| IMO the switch to an SSD would have been the biggest boost.
| yencabulator wrote:
| > On a laptop it's not very practical.
|
| > Because you can't swap the motherboard,
|
| https://frame.work/ has entered the chat.
| immibis wrote:
| Laptops have always been trading size for upgradeability and
| other factors, and soldering everything is the way to make them
| tiny. If you ask me they've gotten too extreme in size. The
| first laptops were way too bulky, but they hit a sweet spot
| around 2005-2010, being just thick enough to hold all those
| D-Sub connectors (VGA, serial, etc).
|
| And soldering stuff to the board is the default way to make
| something when upgradeability isn't a feature.
| doublextremevil wrote:
| Cant wait to see this in a framework laptop
| OJFord wrote:
| For the presumed improvement to battery life? Because Fw
| already uses SO-DIMMs.
| wmf wrote:
| It's also faster (7500 vs. 5600).
| universa1 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| > 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).
| masklinn wrote:
| > To them, it's a cost advantage to make these computers
| easier to repair.
|
| Alternatively, it allows them to use more efficient RAM in
| computer lines they can't make non-repairable so they can
| boast of higher battery life.
| 7speter wrote:
| These companies did plenty well 12+ years ago when users
| could upgrade their systems memory.
| OJFord wrote:
| I didn't find that a particularly complete explanation - _and
| the slot can 't be closer to the CPU because?_ - I think it
| must be more about parasitic properties of the card edge
| connector on DIMMs being problematic at lower voltage (and
| higher frequencies) or something. Note the solution is a ball
| grid connection and the whole thing's shielded.
|
| I suppose in fairness and to the explanation it does give, the
| other thing that footprint allows is a shorter path for the
| pins that would otherwise be near the ends of the daughter
| board (e.g. on a DIMM), since they can all go roughly straight
| across (on multiple layers) instead of a longer diagonal
| according to how far off centre they are. But even if that's
| it, that's what I mean by it seeming incomplete. :)
| smolder wrote:
| Yeah, you can only make the furthest RAM chip in DIMM be so
| close to the CPU based on the form factor, and the other
| traces need to match that length. Distance is critical and
| edge connectors sure don't help.
| Tuna-Fish wrote:
| > and the slot can't be closer to the CPU because?
|
| All the traces going into the slot need to be length-matched
| to obscene precision, and the physical width of the slot and
| the room required by the "wiggles" made in the middle traces
| to length-match them restrict how close you can put the slot.
| Most modern boards are designed to place it as close as
| possible.
|
| LPCAMM2 fixes this by having a lot of the length-matching
| done in the connector.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| Competes with space for VRM's.
| tombert wrote:
| Yeah, I was actually surprised to learn there was a reason
| other than "Apple wants you to buy a new Macbook or overspec
| your current one". It's annoying, but at least there's a
| plausible reason to why they do it.
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| They can have their technical fig leaf to hide behind but in
| practice, how many watts are we really saving between lpddr5
| and ddr5? is it worth the ewaste tradeoff to have a laptop we
| can't modularly upgrade to meet our needs? I would guess not.
| masklinn wrote:
| > how many watts are we really saving between lpddr5 and
| ddr5?
|
| From what I gathered, it's around a watt per when idling
| (which is when it's most critical): the sources I found seem
| to indicate that ddr5 always runs at 1.1V (or more but
| probably not in laptops), while lpddr5 can be downvolted.
| That's an extra 10% idle power consumption per.
| zxcvgm wrote:
| 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-
| cont...
| AlexDragusin wrote:
| > 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.
| ThinkBeat wrote:
| Meanwhile Apple bakes the RAM,CPU,GPU all into the same "chip".
| Good luck with that.
| colinng wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| This is not really true; Apple's SSDs are no faster than
| off-the-shelf premium NVMe SSDs.
| wtallis wrote:
| And the latency of flash memory is several orders of
| magnitude higher than even the slowest interconnect used
| for internal SSDs.
| Rohansi wrote:
| 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.
| 0x457 wrote:
| Meanwhile, Apple ships machines with a 1024bit wide memory bus,
| while this solution offers just 128 bits per "stick".
| oneplane wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| > On the other hand, with a reflow station everything becomes
| modular and repairable.
|
| Not for the average person.
| redeeman wrote:
| true, but can the average person replace the innertube on a
| bicycle wheel? :)
| zokier wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| > maybe my hope is misplaced and many-contact connections will
| always be worse than direct attachment
|
| As much as I like socketed / user-replaceable parts, fact is
| that soldering down a BGA is a very reliable way to make those
| many connections.
|
| On devices like smartphones & tablets RAM would hardly ever be
| upgraded even if possible. On laptops most users don't bother.
| On Raspberry Pi style SBCs it's not doable.
|
| Desktops, workstations & servers are the exception here.
|
| Basically the high-speed parts of a system need to be as close
| together as physically possible. Especially if low power
| consumption is important.
|
| Want easy upgrades? Then compute module + carrier board setups
| might be the way to go. Keep your I/O connectors / display /
| SSD etc, swap out the CPU/GPU/RAM part.
| p0w3n3d wrote:
| Apple hates it
| zokier wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| The compression connector looks flimsier than a mezzanine so it
| should probably be a last resort for multi-gigahertz single-
| ended signaling.
| Tran84jfj wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Is it possible to have both LPDDR and LPCAMM2 in use at the same
| time?
| wtallis wrote:
| LPCAMM2 is a connector and form factor standard for modules
| carrying LPDDR type memory chips.
| masklinn wrote:
| 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.
| Dwedit wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Yes please. Also, can we haz ECC?
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-05-07 23:00 UTC)