Computex 2009 Review: Future Development for DRAM; Latest Development of SSD Products; Core i7 and Windows 7 Make Desktop Looks Good
Published Jun.9 2009, 17:06 PM (GMT+8)
Computex 2009 Review: Future Development for DRAM
Computex has been a spotlight to global buyers during 5-days exhibition and it is the best place to detect new technology trend in the second half of the year and for vendors to demonstrate their newly developed products. DDR3, high density module and over-clocking functionality are the main three topics in DRAM development.
CULV platform has been highly promoted by Intel and PC related companies in Computex. Given the advantage in high speed and low voltage of DDR3, CULV platform with DDR3 can improve its battery endurance by 10%-15% compared with the one carried DDR2 resulted in the energy-saving 1.5V of DDR3 (Voltage for DDR2 is 1.8V). In order to make DDR3 more competitive, DRAM makers plan to introduce extra-low voltage 1.35V DDR3 chips in the coming periods.
In the exhibition, some module houses introduce 4GB DDR3 module for consumer market that 2GB/4GB module is expected to become the mainstream module standard in the future. According to DRAMeXchange, 2Gb chips will be the main standard of DDR3 and mass production timeframe is scheduled earlier than DDR3 1Gb one. Meanwhile, 2Gb chips can favor module houses not only by saving 2GB module production time and cost saving but also facilitating the 4GB module manufacturing process.
Although over-clocking is regarded as the niche market, module houses still take it as a potential target due to its high entry barrier and high profit margins. The DDR3 mainstream data transfer rate is 1066MHz and 1333Mhz but the rate has been pulled up to 1800Mhz and 2000Mhz in over-clocking market. We believe the over-clocking market remains attractive to certain IT heavy users.
Windows 7 is announced to be launched at 10/22 and is expected to have negative impact on memory demand. Now this situation can be offset by the new function-“Windows Virtual PC-XP Mode” (XPM). The virtualization is designed to solve the software compatibility issues between Windows Vista and Windows XP along with the facilitation of Windows 7 translation for Windows XP users. XP-related software and Windows 7 related software can be both executed in one computer without switching platform under virtualization environment.
Hardware spectrum requirement for Windows 7 with XPM will be higher than solely Windows 7 spectrum and 3GB to 4GB memory is highly recommended for better performance. Compared with original low memory requirement for Windows 7 (1GB), the development of XPM is perceived as the rare positive impact to memory industry.
Computex Taipei 2009 Review: Latest Development of SSD Products
Solid-State Disk (SSD) has been widely applied in military and industry products. With the beginning of adoption by PC, SSD soon expanded its applications to various consumer electronics. Although the lower acceptance in low-price PC and boosting NAND Flash price since 2008 has slowed its growing momentum, SSD is still perceived as a potential product.
Many vendors introduced new SSD products aggressively at Taipei Computex 2009. Kingston has launched Now M and SSD Now E SSD series for commercial PC and servers. The characteristics are their effective read/write and I/O performance. The write speed for Now M series is 170MB/s and 70 MB/s for series NOW E along with 200 million and 120 million MTBF rates respectively. Now V series SSD is mainly applied in desktop and notebook, which will be shipped in June. Both SSD series apply same MSRP that 64GB content product is about US$148 (NT$ 4,800) and US$ 264 (NT$ 8,600) for 128GB contents.
San Disk also claims that hard disk stability of their new generation pSSD P2 and pSSD S2 is up to 9000vRPM and embedded nCache technology can improve the hard disk effectiveness by providing up to 320MB SRAM and supporting the writing function to achieve the system performance. Also, nCache technology can secure data’s safety under the power cut.
Other Taiwanese module houses, such like PQI, also introduced series of SSD products to the market. Based on different market demand, PQI introduced series of SSD products with different interface, high read/write speed and high compatibility such as external SSD S530&520, embedded SSD S525&518, high efficient SSD 527&S528, server-oriented SSD X-25M and SSD 521 for PATA interface upgrade market.
The newly established Solid State Drive Alliance (SSDA) also joined Computex 2009 to demonstrate its progress in new technology product and future development. The exhibition for SSD products will be divided into two parts which include products for certification and products from member companies. Companies such as A-data, Jmicron, MemoCom, Memoright and Silicon Motion also demonstrated their products which have successfully passed the 1.4 version certification.
Computex Review:Core i7 and Windows 7 Make Desktop Looks Good
PC companies still put a lot of emphasis on desktop products in Computex although the desktop market scale has been surpassed by notebook one.
As for CPU, Intel introduces two new models Core i7 processors: Extreme Edition Core i7 975 with 3.33GHz and Standard Edition Core i7 950 with 3.06GHz. The MSRP for 975 is US$ 999 and US$ 562 for model 950.
Intel announces to launch new desktop platform in the second half of the year: Processors Lynnfield with chipset P55 Express. Both processors Lynnfield and i7 adopt Nehalem micro structure with quad processing cores. Chipset P55 Express is the first mainstream product line in Series 5 (X58 model is the only one product line in the Series 5), and Series 5 will gradually replace the chipset Series 4 started from 2010. The most impressive progress for P55 is that the main functionality of north-bridge is integrated in CPU, and the original combination (CPU+ North Bridge chipset+ South Bridge chipset) can be transformed into the combination of CPU (with graphic and memory controller) and a single system chip (P55).
AMD focus more on the desktop platform “dragon” and introduces series processors from duo processing cores to four processing cores. AMD also launch two new CPU models for desktop to complete the product lines gap between Phenom II and Athlon: US$ 102 Phenom II X2 550 and US$ 87 Athlon II X2 250. Also, AMD announces that GPU will fully support DX-11 and enterprise products will be more emphasized on virtualization and energy-saving feature. New six cores Opteron processor will also be target in enterprise market as well.
All-In-One (AIO) products turn to the spotlight in desktop system during Computex. Benefited by new technology in multi-points panel touch function in Windows 7, PC companies have pumped up resource on the AIO development. AIO is expected to show a satisfactory long-term growth and relative larger share in desktop market despite of slow growth in the initiate stage compared with the development trend of netbook. Without constraints in screen size, AIO can have a better chance to boost market share if price and performance is superior to current desktop products. Another potential growth opportunity for AIO will be laid on the “Digital Home”, that is, AIO can be designed to embed during the house construction. We believe this kind of application can expand application for AIO products.
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