Samsung accelerates shift to DDR2 memory

Samsung announced that it is leading the industry shift from DDR1 to DDR2 main memory. As of July, approximately 40 percent of the company's total DRAM output is DDR2 and approximately 30 percent is DDR1. This marks the first month that production of DDR2 has crossed over to take the lead from DDR1 in bits produced.

"The industry has been waiting for a clear indication that DDR2 has become the dominant memory for EDP (electronic data processing) applications including computing and this is it. We are seeing an upsurge in interest in DDR2 from system OEMs as well as system integrators, something that will continue to accelerate into 2006," said Tom Quinn, senior vice president, memory sales and marketing, Samsung Semiconductor.

After setting the first 10-million (256Mb equivalent) milestone in shipments in July 2004, Samsung has reached an aggregate production volume of 360 million (256Mb equivalent) units by the first half of this year. This is a 30-fold growth in the past 12 months and a direct reflection of the company's pivotal role in driving the DDR2 market. The company's strong product portfolio allows it to hold up to 40% of the global DDR2 market.

DDR2 provides faster speeds, better signal integrity, improved thermal characteristics and reduced power consumption -- more than any other memory available today for the desktop, server, workstation and notebook markets.

The 1.8-volt JEDEC-compliant memory features high-speed data transfer rates of 667 Mbps or 533 Mbps, and will be offered in an 800 Mbps version by early next year. Pricing has dropped to where the cost of DDR2 is essentially on par with DDR1 on a per bit basis.

Samsung is now producing 256, 512 Mb and 1 Gb versions of DDR2 at 533 Mbps, plus 256 and 512 Mb versions of its new DDR2-667 memory. Samsung's DDR2-667 optimizes performance in both single-core and dual-core processor systems.

Features contained in DDR2 that are not available in other memory include on-die termination, 240-pin count, multiple drive controls, off-chip driver calibration and four-bit pre-fetch.

"DDR2 market penetration may not have been quite as fast as some expected, but it's accelerating rapidly now, spiking demand for higher performance to drive increased unit sales of PCs, notebooks and servers," said Victor De Dios, president, DE DIOS & ASSOCIATES, a widely recognized DRAM market analyst firm.

According to DE DIOS & ASSOCIATES research, DDR2 sales will increase from $1.5B in 2004 to $6.5B this year to $18B in 2006.