Hi Jdassoc; I took another look at Samsung's RIMM/DIMM
offerings, 256MB or better, and here are the complete
statistics. Make of it what you will, and you will, it
sure doesn't look to me like DDR has been left out of the
next generation:
RDRAM:
256MB RIMMs, 2 types mass production, one type for engineering samples:
intl.samsungsemi.com
512MB RIMMs, 1 type, engineering samples only
intl.samsungsemi.com
DDR DIMM:
256MB 3 types available for engineering samples, 4 more under development:
intl.samsungsemi.com
512MB 4 types under development:
intl.samsungsemi.com
1GB 1 type under development:
intl.samsungsemi.com
SDR DIMM:
256MB 24 types in mass production:
intl.samsungsemi.com
512MB 7 types in mass production, 2 customer samples:
intl.samsungsemi.com
1GB 2 types in mass production, PC100, PC133:
intl.samsungsemi.com
Here are the totals:
Types available:
Mass Production Samples Only Under Development
256MB 512MB 1GB 256MB 512MB 1GB 256MB 512MB 1GB
----- ----- --- ----- ----- --- ----- ----- ---
SDR DRAM 24 7 2 0 2 0 0 0 0
DRDRAM 2 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0
DDR DRAM 0 0 0 3 0 0 4 4 1
These are the complete figures, to the best that I could take them from
their website at: intl.samsungsemi.com
Naturally, there interpretation is what is of interest.
I know that interpreting these numbers will be difficult or impossible
for those who don't understand how engineering works, so I am going to
here give an explanation that anyone should be able to understand. I
will look at each category, "Mass Production", and "Samples Only"
separately, one at a time...
Mass Production.
Mass production means that Samsung is pumping out the parts. These
figures are backwards looking, in that they indicate production types
that are already in production, not necessarily the types that will be
involved with future production. The figures above are dominated by
SDRAM, which is natural, as SDRAM currently dominates the SDRAM market.
In fact, there are 33 types of SDRAM listed under mass production, while
there are only 2 types of RIMM so listed. But we already knew this, SDRAM
dominates the current market.
The other thing to note is that Samsung is in mass production with 1GB
SDRAM DIMMs, while they are only up to 256MB with RIMMs. This indicates
something that design engineers already knew, but mom and pop is unaware
of. RIMM modules are low in density. That means that in order to get
the same amount of memory in a system, you have to buy 4X more RIMM modules
than you would DIMM modules. This means that there are extra costs involved.
(In addition, RDRAM requires more pins on the motherboard because of this,
again showing that there is no advantage to total system pin count with
RDRAM. But RDRAM does reduce the pin count on the controller chip, but that
is another discussion. Engineering trade offs are complicated, I can't
talk about everything at once.)
Samples Only
Samples only means that Samsung has not yet entered into mass production
with the device, (and, in fact, may never,) but that you can get samples
of it, and they are prepared to go into mass production.
Samples are a leading indicator of mass production, and in the above table,
it is clear that the leading technology for new samples is DDR with 3 types.
RDRAM is tied with SDRAM with only two types sampling. Hardly an indication
that Samsung has a lot of big RDRAM plans.
Under Development
Under development means that these are the parts that Samsung will be
supplying as samples later on. This is a leading indicator of mass production,
and DDR wins out with 9 types under development. By comparison, there is
no SDRAM nor RIMM modules under development. RDRAM is quite dead.
I know that you guys who are on the trailing edge of technology (i.e. buyers
of technology instead of designers of it), will be unaware of the new memory
standards until Dell starts selling them to you, but the figures on the
Samsung web site are clear. What are being announced now as RDRAM design
wins are actually designs that were started as long ago as 2 years, but are
only just now coming to completion. Since the complete failure of the
technology, this past September, there has been little interest in RDRAM
in the design community. I know, articles that were written months ago are
still being published, and the Rambus PR machine still grinds on. Dell has
huge commitments to buy RDRAM and is busily selling it to customers, but none
of this is an indication of the future of technology. They are an indication
of where technology is, but not an indication of where technology is going.
To know where technology is going, look at the numbers in the above table.
Okay mom and pop, I truly can't make it simpler for you. Humans have
an almost infinite ability to believe what they want to believe.
-- Carl |
