IBM Will Enhance Its Memory Chips With New DDR Standard
12/07/98
PC Week
Page 28(1)
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In a move to bring memory chips on a performance par with microprocessors, IBM's Microelectronics Division last week laid out a road map for future memory chips that incorporate the emerging DDR standard.
The move coincided with an announcement from 11 DRAM (dynamic RAM) chip producers, including Fujitsu Microelectronics Inc., Micron Electronics Inc., Mitsubishi Electronics America Inc., NEC USA Inc. and Samsung Electronic America Inc., which also pledged to incorporate the double data rate technology into future SDRAM (synchronous DRAM) chips.
Developed and approved by the Joint Electronic Device Engineering Council of the IEEE, the DDR SDRAM standard is aimed at addressing the increasing demand for high data throughput by today's CPUs.
Memory chips based on DDR, due in mid-1999, will compete against Rambus Inc.'s RDRAM (Rambus DRAM) memory system bus technology that's supported by Intel Corp. RDRAM is also slated for implementation in mid-1999.
IBM will incorporate DDR technology into its memory offerings over the next five years, according to company officials. Specific product plans include 0.175- micron, 128MB DDR SDRAM chips, scheduled to ship late next year, and 0.15- micron, 256MB DDR SDRAM chips, due in 2001, said officials at IBM's Microelectronics Division, in Fishkill, N.Y.
IBM is preparing samples of 0.20-micron, 256MB DDR SDRAM to be made in volume in mid-1999. In addition, IBM is manufacturing prototypes of 0.20-micron, 64MB DDR SDRAM, according to company officials.
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