Rambus Unveils XDR DRAM

Toshiba and Elpida Memory will manufacture Rambus's new memory technology, formerly known as Yellowstone, by 2005, the companies announced Thursday.

The new technology is to be known as Extreme Data Rate Dynamic RAM (XDR DRAM). It will run at 3.2 GHz when samples start shipping in 2004, according to Rambus. This is far faster than any memory technology currently available in PCs or consumer entertainment devices.

New Approach

Rambus is using a completely different interface technology for XDR DRAM than that used by Double Data Rate Synchronous DRAM (DDR SDRAM) vendors today, says Dean McCarron, principal analyst with Mercury Research.

"This is a high-performance memory for high-performance applications," McCarron says.

Rambus doesn't actually make memory chips, but licenses the intellectual property needed to make the interfaces used in memory chips to communicate with an I/O device or the chip set, McCarron notes.

Vendors Commit

Rambus claims its XDR technology will offer performance greater than other specialty DRAM products while remaining competitive with mainstream memory products. Rambus DRAM (RDRAM), the last memory interface the company marketed extensively, eventually fell out of favor with PC manufacturers after the performance of cheaper DDR memory products caught up with RDRAM.

Sony and its PlayStation subsidiary, Sony Computer Entertainment, have already announced that they will license the XDR DRAM technology for future products. Sony is expected to use XDR DRAM in its upcoming PlayStation 3, because it already uses RDRAM in the popular PlayStation 2 console.

The design is available immediately to semiconductor companies and system vendors for design purposes, Rambus says. Toshiba and Elpida are expected to begin shipping products in 2004, with volume production coming in 2005, the companies say.