December 07, 1998, Issue: 820
Section: News
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Vendors support DDR SDRAM
Amber Howle
Irvine, Calif. -- Eleven major memory suppliers last week said they were prepared to support Double Data Rate (DDR) SDRAM. Samples of the devices already are shipping to OEMs, and DDR SDRAM modules are expected to hit the channel by the middle of next year.
Vendors officially backing DDR SDRAM are Fujitsu Computer Products of America, Hitachi America Ltd., Hyundai Electronics America, IBM Corp., LG Electronics USA Inc., Micron Technology Inc., Mitsubishi Electronics America Inc., NEC Technologies Inc., Samsung Semiconductor, Siemens Semiconductor and Toshiba America Information Systems Inc.
DDR essentially doubles the rate of data transfer from a DRAM chip to the main processor and is scalable with the current generation of SDRAM. Its major competitor, Direct RDRAM, which was developed by Rambus Inc., Mountain View, Calif., and Intel Corp., Santa Clara, Calif., requires a whole new architecture. Both technologies offer comparable performance, but analysts said DDR most likely will find a niche in the server and workstation segments over the next two years.
"[This announcement] is appealing to workstation and large file-server manufacturers," said Jim Handy, memory analyst at Dataquest, San Jose, Calif. "That's where [DDR SDRAM] is finding its acceptance."
DDR SDRAM is a good fit for large servers and workstations that need a large amount of DRAM and can support wider data buses, said Steve Cullen, DRAM analyst at Cahners In-Stat Group, Scottsdale, Ariz. Direct Rambus technology supports a 16-bit bus transferring data at 800 bits per second per pin. Although DDR only operates at 200 bps, it supports a 64-bit bus, resulting in comparable speed. Any data path less than 32 bits would be a good candidate for Direct RDRAM, while DDR would be suitable for data paths more than 64 bits, Cullen said.
Vendors advocating DDR want to quell that notion. "We spent a lot of money developing it on the expectation that it will become mainstream," said Jim Sogas, director of DRAM product marketing at Hitachi. "There is a perception that it's nichey. We're trying to kill that perception."
Copyright ® 1998 CMP Media Inc.
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