Qualcomm chips could use Samsung's LPDDR6X memory next year

Samsung appears to have regained its competitiveness in the memory chips segment. Yesterday, the company announced that it had become the world’s first to begin mass production of sixth-generation high-bandwidth memory (HBM4) chips. Now, reports suggest the South Korean firm has already shipped LPDDR6X memory chip samples to Qualcomm for use in next-generation processors.

A report from The Bell claims that Samsung Electronics has sent LPDDR6X memory samples to Qualcomm. These chips could be used in Qualcomm processors expected to launch in the second half of 2027. This move is unusual, as Samsung has not yet commercially launched LPDDR6 DRAM and has already provided LPDDR6X chips that are still under development.

Industry insiders believe Samsung’s LPDDR6X DRAM could be used in Qualcomm’s data center–focused AI250 accelerator cards as well as in future automotive chips. The AI250 system is expected to feature more than 1,000GB of LPDDR6X DRAM, and Qualcomm may prioritize Samsung as its memory supplier.

Low-power memory such as LPDDR is typically used in laptops, smartphones, tablets, and wearable devices. However, Nvidia recently began adopting LPDDR memory in its AI accelerator systems as well.

LPDDR6 offers a maximum data transfer speed of 14.4Gbps and peak bandwidth of 38.4GB/s, representing improvements of 44% and 20%, respectively, compared to LPDDR5X chips. LPDDR6X memory is expected to deliver even better performance and efficiency, although the Joint Electron Device Engineering Council (JEDEC) has not yet finalized the LPDDR6X standard.