From eet:http://www.eet.com/story/OEG19990430S0026
Industry group will push DDR DRAMs
By Will Wade
(04/30/99, 4:49 p.m. EDT)
SAN JOSE, Calif. ‹ More than 20 memory-industry players have joined an
effort to promote double-data-rate (DDR) DRAMs. The new body, Advanced
Memory International Inc., grew out of the remains of SLDRAM Inc., which
quietly slipped from the limelight this year after trying to promote the
SLDRAM format.
Desi Rhoden, president of the new body, said that while AMI2 is not
technically an offshoot of SLDRAM Inc., it has adopted its predecessor's
bylaws and functional framework. "The purpose of AMI2 is to promote the
development of the infrastructure to support the next level of DRAM
technology," he said.
Word of the organization first emerged at the International Solid State
Circuits conference earlier this year. Members include Fujitsu Ltd.,
Hitachi Ltd., Infineon Technologies AG, Micron Technology Inc. and
Mitsubishi Electric.
The group's primary goal is to advance DDR memory while pushing members
to plan for the architecture's next generation, DDR-2 DRAM. Rhoden said
that systems with DDR-2 chips could be available in two years and that
the designs will offer data-transfer rates of up to 4 Gbytes/second,
double the bandwidth of existing DDR devices.
DDR-2 uses the memory-cell designs seen in both standard SDRAM and DDR
DRAM chips, but it will feature some I/O designs to facilitate faster
data rates. As with the SLDRAM chips and unlike Rambus memory, Rhoden
said, the architecture will be offered as an open standard to the DRAM
industry.
Though prototypes of SLDRAM were delivered last year to several of
SLDRAM Inc.'s member-companies, the technology failed to catch on in the
mainstream memory market. The formation of AMI2 and the move to
cannibalize the technology into next-generation DDR designs could be the
final nail in the SLDRAM coffin.
"They developed a packet-based part, and the industry didn't want it,"
said Rhoden. "And they still don't seem to want it." |
