Brain Candy For Your PC Memory -- System memory product leaders herald Rambus' RIMM, the 'new standard for 1999'
Mar. 12, 1999 (VARBusiness - CMP via COMTEX) -- Slowly appearing on
the memory module horizon is a next-generation, high-performance
plug-in for PC main memory called the Direct Rambus RIMM Module.
Rambus Inc. may be accurate when it says that its RIMM module is "the
new memory standard shipping for 1999," because memory interface
technology is expected to make its debut in the PC main memory
marketplace with Santa Clara, Calif.-based Intel Corp.'s Camino
motherboard in the fourth quarter.
Intel is not alone in its support. Last month, Hewlett-Packard Co.,
Kingston Technology Co. and National Semiconductor Corp. joined a list
of more than 50 leaders in system memory implementation products by
announcing plans supporting the new technology.
The RIMM module conforms to the standard DIMM form factor, but is not
pin-compatible. Therefore, an upgrade to a Rambus dynamic RAM
(RDRAM)-compliant motherboard is required. Its architecture is based on
the electrical requirements of the Direct Rambus Channel, a high-speed
bus operating at a clock rate of 400 MHz, with a data rate of 800
MHz-far surpassing synchronous DRAM's (SDRAM) highest transfer rate of
100 MHz. A 2-Byte-wide data path allows for a peak data transfer rate
of 1.6 GBps, doubling the SDRAM's 800-MBps rate.
With faster clock speeds coming from processor manufacturers, "it's
been a concern that the memory subsystem would become a bottleneck,"
says Julie Kates, corporate marketing manager at Rambus. "You've got to
upgrade your memory subsystem or you're going to starve for memory
access."
"Rambus is revolutionary because it uses a different technology to
allow for multiple transactions on the bus," says Lisa Dreher, memory
product manager at Kingston Technology.
A variation of the new module is planned for mobile PCs in the fourth
quarter. There are also plans to develop large-scale servers,
workstations and communications applications.
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