Intel announced that its ZAM memory project, which is being developed with SoftBank's subsidiary, SAIMEMORY, has received a big boost from Japan.
Japan Accelerates The 3.5-Year Development Plan of ZAM, A Memory Revolution By Intel & SoftBank
In its latest presser, Intel Kabushiki Kaisha (Intel K.K.) and SoftBank Corp. subsidiary SAIMEMORY have unveiled that Japan's NEDO (New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization) has now selected ZAM, a next-generation memory standard which is being seen as an HBM replacement.
With the selection of ZAM by NEDO, the program will fund the project through government subsidies, accelerating its development to address critical market constraints pertaining to memory shortages in the AI and HPC segments.
The ZAM project was first laid out in February this year as it paired with SoftBank to devise a solution that solves the ongoing memory crisis. The result was ZAM or Z-Angle Memory, designed to offer High-Density, Wide-Bandwidth, Low-Power. Under the new program, ZAM will also draw on a network of technology, manufacturing, and supply chain partners in Japan and internationally to support its overall development and commercialization at scale.
“Intel has spent years proving the science behind ZAM, from DOE national laboratories to our Next Generation DRAM Bonding initiative. We believe this award puts that work on a fast track to global deployment and strengthens the kind of U.S.-Japan technology partnership that will matter enormously in the years ahead.” said Makoto Ohno, President of Intel K.K.
Diving a bit into the technical aspects, Intel ZAM (Z-Angle Memory) aims to deliver 40-50% lower power consumption, a simplified design that leads to easy manufacturing, and up to 512 GB densities per chip. Each Z-Angle memory stack will be layered with tightly stacked DRAM ICs, each connected via Z-Angle interconnects. Each stack will be connected to the primary compute chip via EMIB under the base die.
The introduction of ZAM will be Intel's first memory product in several decades. During its early days, Intel was a big name in the memory manufacturing industry, but was ultimately pushed out by Japanese vendors, and now, Japanese firms are helping make ZAM a reality.
About the author: A Software Engineer by training and a PC enthusiast by passion, Hassan Mujtaba serves as Wccftech's Senior Editor for hardware section. With years of experience in the industry, he specializes in deep-dive technical analysis of next-generation CPU and GPU architectures, motherboards, and cooling solutions. His work involves not only breaking news on upcoming technologies but also extensive hands-on reviews and benchmarking.
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