AMD Licenses Direct Rambus For K7 Line
Oct 08, 1998 (Tech Web - CMP via COMTEX) -- Advanced Micro Devices
Thursday said it will adopt the Direct Rambus dynamic RAM memory
interface for the K7 microprocessor line the company is readying for
next year's PC market.
The K7 will support Direct RDRAM and existing PC-100 SDRAM with
separate chip sets.
Though it has stumbled in the processor arena, the Sunnyvale,
Calif.-based rival to Intel has begun to make progress in the growing
sub-$1,000 PC market with its cost-conscious K6 CPU design.
Next year, AMD will attempt to break into Intel's market stronghold
with the K7, which is aimed at so-called performance-class PCs. With
the bulk of the high-end PC industry planning a shift to the Direct
RDRAM interface next year, AMD saw the memory's 1.6-gigabyte-per-second
bandwidth as a necessary ingredient to its original equipment
manufacturing strategy, according to Richard Heye, vice president and
general manager of the company's K7 division.
"From our road map, if you look at the commodity DRAM market going
forward for the next couple of years, the next consumer-level DRAM is
going to be Direct RDRAM," Heye said.
AMD, whose chip sets, to now, have been manufactured by third-party
suppliers, did not release Direct RDRAM chip set development details or
indicate when it would bring the device to market.
AMD's approach differs from that of Intel (company profile), whose
Camino chip set will support Direct RDRAM, and, through use of a
specially designed memory module known as a synchronous-RIMM, will be
backward compatible to PC-100 SDRAM.
Instead, AMD opted for two separate chip sets that it said will give
its customers greater flexibility in choosing memory options. "One
thing we expressly elected not to do was to tie the fate of the K7
directly in with Rambus," Heye said.
As for S-RIMM compatibility, AMD is still exploring the option. "We're
looking at that right now, but we haven't made any decisions," Heye
said. "We'll look at the market and do whatever makes our OEMs happy."
For Rambus, whose royalty-based licensing model created waves when it
entered the price-sensitive DRAM market, the AMD deal further validates
its architecture. "I think that Intel and AMD combined now have about
95 percent of the x86 CPU market," said Subodh Toprani, vice president
and general manager for Rambus' logic division. "In the PC space, that
makes Rambus the standard."
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