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Memory, the present and future – preached by Lord Intel.
At IDF, Intel outlined its memory support plans for future products, forecasting its moves until 2006. The big plans come with support for desktop DDR3 modules in 2006, along with FB-DIMM modules in the same year.
The plan to EOL (end-of-life) SDRAM (inluding current DDR) by the end of 2006, giving users a clear view of just when Intel are going to cut off that memory technology completely.
Intel also expects DDR2 to see a speed bump from the current DDR2-400 and DDR2-533 ratified speeds, up to DDR2-667 and DDR2-800. Indeed, Samsung reportedly have good yeilds of DDR2-800 DRAM devices, they're just waiting for chipset support. Intel point to
i925XE for that.
Intel also forecast the migration of non-PC computing devices to new network technologies in the coming year. For example, Its 90nm WestPort networking ASIC currently uses DDR but they're respinning it for DDR2 DRAM support.
As far as official support goes, DDR2-667 is just about to be ratified and DDR2-800 is heading the same way, JEDEC doing its usual work in that area.
FB-DIMM
FB-DIMM (Fully Buffered) is a movement of memory technology from the current parallel bus architecture, to a serial bus with point to point links for each DIMM device on the host.
As with other computing technologies that have run up on the limits of reliable data transmission at high rates over a parallel bus interface (think the ATA to SATA transition), memory technologies are having a hard time guaranteeing signal reliability on high speed parallel busses. FB-DIMM is the response, allowing fully buffered DRAM usage (for reliability) and very high speed serial bus interfaces to the DRAM controller.
Samsung on DDR2
Samsung's Jim Elliot also had a fair bit to say on his company's plans for DDR2 production this year. They've got near perfect yeilds on DDR2-400 devices, but DDR2-667+ output is increasing day-on-day, to the point where they'll have a fair chunk of their DDR2 DRAM production pumping out 667 pr faster DRAMs, with those DRAMs being sold as 400 and 533 to meet demand. He says overclockers should keep an eye on Samsung DDR2 DRAM devices for high performance on Pentium 4 this year!
Finally, they're looking to sample FB-DIMM devices by the end of 2004 with full sampling in Q1 2005, for testing and validation and other setup work, and they also said that BGA is likely to be their dominant packaging type for DRAMs in 2005, rather than good old TSOP, as the industry shifts to BGA across the board for all DRAM production, DDR, DDR2, DDR3 (which is solely BGA) and FB-DIMM included.
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