Infineon debuts very-low-profile 2GB DIMMs

At the Intel Developer Forum (IDF) in San Francisco today, Infineon Technologies announced that it is sampling 512MB, 1GB and 2GB DDR2 VLP-DIMMs. The Infineon VLP-DIMMs have a height of only 18.3 millimeters, which is 40 percent less than the height of the 1U Registered DIMMs usually used in server applications, and target high-density blade servers with reduced dimensions. The smaller form factor reduces space requirements by more than half, improving airflow and making room for additional functionalities or more memory modules in blade servers. To increase memory capacity beyond 1GB while keeping a reduced form factor, Infineon uses dual-die-based 1Gbit DDR2 compo-nents, which the company introduced as the industry's first in February 2005.

"VLP-DIMMs are the perfect solution for blade servers. With the introduction of VLP-DIMMs, we extend our leading DRAM portfolio for server applications, offering our customers an added value with regard to system performance, power consumption and appropriate form factor," said Michael Buckermann, Head of the Business Unit Computing of Infineon's Memory Products Group. "This is another milestone in the successful implementation of the Memory Products Group's strategy to broaden its product portfolio to include less volatile and higher margin DRAM components and modules."

Blades are thin, modular servers designed to be inserted into a space-saving rack with many similar servers that share a common backplane for power supply and connectivity resources. Due to their reduced height, VLP-DIMMs can be placed vertically rather than at an angle on the memory socket of the blade, resulting in a space increase of about 60 percent and improved cooling airflow within the blade unit.

The small dimensions of blades allow users to fit more than 250 servers in the same space as conventional 42-server racks, while their reduced power consumption leads to additional cost savings. Bladed servers are being adopted for applications inside data centers and at the edge of networks for tasks such as Web pages, e-mail and streaming media.

According to recent forecasts by market research firm Gartner, blade server shipments are expected to grow from around 540 thousand units this year to 1.3 million units by 2009, representing 14 percent of worldwide server shipments.

Infineon 512MB, 1GB and 2GB DDR2 VLP-DIMMs with speeds of DDR2-400, DDR2-533 and DDR2-667 based on the company's low-power 512M-bit DDR2 components are available now in sample quantities. Volume production of the 512MB and 1GB VLP-DIMMs is planned to start by the end of 2005.

For reference, the price of a 1GB DDR2 VLP-DIMM is US-Dollar 210 in sample quantities.