RAM Chip

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What Does RAM Chip Mean?

A RAM chip is a microchip used as RAM storage for computers and other devices. This is the actual chip that is soldered onto small circuit boards in order to create RAM cards or sticks, and it is rated for performance and capacity differently, depending on the model and manufacturer. In the mobile device industry, the most common RAM chip used is DDR3, which has a storage capacity of 1 to 3 GB.

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Techopedia Explains RAM Chip

A RAM chip is the actual device that contains the transistors that allow implementation of random access memory in hardware. It is the most basic and integral part of memory, as it is the basic building block for RAM cards and other applications.

RAM chips first came onto market in the late 1960s, and the first DRAM chip available commercially was the Intel 1103, which was introduced in October 1970. Today, RAM chips use the same technologies that are available to most microchips and microprocessors, which allows them to be made using the latest sub-20-nm processes, allowing them to be smaller and faster, have more capacity and be relatively cheaper to make than older generations of chips.

RAM chips are either integrated into small circuit boards that contain controllers and buses to allow communication with the computer or PC, or are available as separate replaceable modules. In mobile devices, however, the RAM chip is directly soldered on the motherboard to save space, and is therefore not removable. There are as many kinds of RAM chips as there are kinds of RAM, from SRAM, DRAM to the more specialized VRAM and many more.

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Margaret Rouse
Technology expert
Margaret Rouse
Technology expert

Margaret is an award-winning writer and educator known for her ability to explain complex technical topics to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles in the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret’s idea of ​​a fun day is to help IT and business professionals to learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.