CAMM2 deep-dive: The futuristic new memory standard, explained

CAMM2, short for Compression Attached Memory Module (and also 2), is one of the few truly exciting bits of hardware innovation to come out in the last few years. It’s poised to give us faster and more efficient memory for laptops (and maybe even desktops?) while also preserving the upgradeability that seems to be disappearing. For a deeper dive into the technical side of CAMM2, check out Gordon’s video breakdown.

The original CAMM design comes from engineers at Dell, but they’ve made their work available to JEDEC, the association that helps to standardize flash storage and memory formats across different companies. Since then the first laptops with CAMM-based memory have become available, and now we have a real contender in the adjusted CAMM2 standard.

It comes in two flavors, the full-power DDR5 CAMM2 (in various sizes), and the low-power alternate LPDDR5 CAMM2 (sometimes shortened to just LP CAMM2), which is made for higher efficiency in laptops. The rectangular CAMM2 modules are designed for desktops and servers, where they’ll still be faster and more efficient than conventional memory, while the LPDDR5 CAMM2 for laptops is smaller with an angled extension — it sort of looks like a hat.

Lenovo’s ThinkPad P1 gen 7 series is the first laptop available at retail to use the LPDDR5 CAMM2 standard, with MSI showing off a prototype motherboard with a CAMM2 memory connector at Computex. All three major memory suppliers, Micron, Samsung, and Hynix, are on board, so we’re well set up to see it expand to future hardware.

The advantages of CAMM2 are most dramatic for laptops. The memory installs onto a compression plate with screws, so for the end user it’s no more complex to install or replace than an M2 drive. But the design means you save a huge amount of vertical space in the hardware, ideal for building smaller and thinner laptops. The limitation of old-fashioned SO-DIMM memory in this regard is the reason that more and more laptops are soldering their memory in place permanently.

CAMM2 isn’t a magic bullet solution — it’s still more complex, more expensive, and more voluminous than soldered memory, and it’s nowhere near as fast or efficient as the memory being installed right on the processor die as seen in Intel’s upcoming Lunar Lake CPUs and Apple’s new M-series MacBooks. But it’s an improvement in every technical capacity over SO-DIMM, so there’s hope that this is an acceptable compromise to make laptops more repairable and less prone to e-waste. The benefits of the larger CAMM2 modules for desktops, including “big iron” data center hardware, are also apparent.

Check the video for Gordon Ung’s expert walk-through of JEDEC’s presentation on the technology, and be sure to subscribe to PCWorld on YouTube to keep abreast of all the coolest hardware that might make its way into your next machine.

Further reading: Best of Computex 2024: The most intriguing and innovative PC hardware

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