Joe, <Just off the top of my head, you have Intel, AMD, Via, ServerWorks, Micron all working on DDR chipsets. Given recent debacles of Intel chipset division, do you think that Intel is the most competent of all these teams?>
There are two groups who do chipsets at Intel. One is PCG in Folsom, CA, which does desktop chipsets like the 820, 840, 810, 815, and the Tehama chipsets. The other is SWCD, which does server chipsets like 450NX (Xeon), 460GX (Itanium), and 870 (McKinley and Foster). It's SWCD who's doing DDR, not those slackers <G> in Folsom.
I think Pat Gelsinger is speaking from the point-of-view of desktop chipsets. Certainly there are different challenges and different requirements between servers and mainstream PCs. It's not that DDR requires 12-layer motherboards (as Jim mistakenly assumes). It's just that since servers already have 12-layer (or more) motherboards, the electrical problems of DDR become a non-issue.
I'm sure DDR can be implemented on 6-layer motherboards, which is what Athlon requires anyway. It'll just take a lot of engineering effort. On the other hand, I really don't think dual-channel DDR can easily be implemented with just a 6-layer motherboard. That leaves RDRAM with a big advantage once the Willamette/Tehama platform rolls around. (Heck, even the 840 chipset implements dual RDRAM channels, and demonstrates good performance with low latency.)
Tenchusatsu |
