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LPCAMM2 is a modular, repairable, upgradeable memory standard for laptops

ifixit.com

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Re: LPCAMM2 is a modular, repairable, upgradeable memory standard for laptops

#41

Post by zokier »

oneplane wrote: post #28

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-use…

> 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.

Re: LPCAMM2 is a modular, repairable, upgradeable memory standard for laptops

#42

Post by Aurornis »

mmastrac wrote: post #2

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 repairab…

> 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.

Re: LPCAMM2 is a modular, repairable, upgradeable memory standard for laptops

#44

Post by coolspot »

Aurornis wrote: post #40
baby_souffle wrote: post #4

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.

> 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 signifi…

> like asking for upgradeable RAM on your GPU

Can I please have upgradeable RAM on GPU? Pwetty pwease?

Re: LPCAMM2 is a modular, repairable, upgradeable memory standard for laptops

#45

Post by mschuster91 »

colinng wrote: post #38
ThinkBeat wrote: post #23

Meanwhile Apple bakes the RAM,CPU,GPU all into the same "chip". Good luck with that.

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.

> 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.

Re: LPCAMM2 is a modular, repairable, upgradeable memory standard for laptops

#46

Post by drivingmenuts »

orev wrote: post #14

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.

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?

Re: LPCAMM2 is a modular, repairable, upgradeable memory standard for laptops

#47

Post by thfuran »

coolspot wrote: post #44
Aurornis wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 signifi…

> like asking for upgradeable RAM on your GPU Can I please have upgradeable RAM on GPU? Pwetty pwease?

Sure, as long as you're willing to pay in cost, size, and performance.

Re: LPCAMM2 is a modular, repairable, upgradeable memory standard for laptops

#49

Post by wmf »

mschuster91 wrote: post #45
colinng wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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.

This is not really true; Apple's SSDs are no faster than off-the-shelf premium NVMe SSDs.

Re: LPCAMM2 is a modular, repairable, upgradeable memory standard for laptops

#50

Post by AlexDragusin »

zxcvgm wrote: post #19

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...

> 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.
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