Rambus to show off XDR DRAM at IDF next week

Rambus is going to show off its first XDR RAM products at next weeks Intel Delevoper Forum in San Francisco. Rambus will show off some 512-megabit XDR DRAM memory and Samsung is also planning to showcase its XDR DRAM at this event. This memory runs at 3.2GHz and offers eight times the bandwidth of today's DDR400.

"Last December, we broke new ground once again when we were first to begin sampling the world's fastest memory," said Shozo Saito, Technology Executive of Semiconductor Company at Toshiba Corporation. "By combining our advanced expertise in trench capacitor cell technology and high speed DRAM with Rambus's ingenious chip-to-chip interface technology, we successfully developed this extraordinary chip, capable of delivering unprecedented multi-gigahertz of data to power future consumer and graphics devices." "Providing our customers with XDR DRAMs will allow us to continue supplying the market with high-quality memory products that provide exceptional bandwidth capabilities," said Tom Quinn, vice president of Samsung Semiconductor memory sales and marketing. "We look forward to ramping XDR DRAM into high-volume production in 2004 and 2005." XDR DRAMs are based on Rambus's XDR memory interface technology. Three of the key innovations include: Differential Rambus Signaling Level (DRSL) -- a bi-directional differential signaling technology offering a high-performance, low-power, and cost-effective solution for getting bandwidth on and off chip; Octal Data Rate (ODR) -- a technology that enables eight bits of data to be transferred on each clock edge, four times as many as today's state-of-the-art double data rate (DDR); FlexPhase -- a circuit architecture that enables precise data transfer and simplifies system designs.

Rambus also said that Toshiba and Samsung are in the process of sampling XDR DRAMs and look forward to their ramp to volume production later this year and into 2005.