29 Companies Line Up With DDR SDRAM Enabling Products.

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 15, 1999--

Major Electronics Suppliers Join DRAM Makers in Creating a Complete

System Solution for New High-Performance Memory Chips

Twenty-nine manufacturers of enabling technologies allowing use of new memory chip architectures today joined 12 of the world's leading DRAM suppliers in announcing supporting products for the Double Data Rate Synchronous DRAM (DDR SDRAM) memory chip standard.

This news follows announcement Nov. 30, 1998 by 11 of the world's largest DRAM suppliers and top systems OEMs in support of DDR SDRAM.

These additional 29 companies include makers of chipsets, modules connectors, clock drivers, modules, and buffers. These necessary technologies complete the DDR infrastructure picture and put all required manufacturing and design elements for DDR SDRAM in place.

DDR SDRAM is a new, open memory chip standard developed and approved by the Joint Electron Device Engineering Council (JEDEC) of the Electronic Industries America (EIA). The DDR specification addresses the high data throughput requirements demanded by the industry's dramatic increases in microprocessor speeds.

This memory standard is ideal for today's servers, workstations, personal computers, data communications, and consumer products in which performance parity with the microprocessor is critical.

Support Components

Support components such as clock drivers, voltage regulators, and buffers are available from a number of suppliers including Hitachi, Hyundai, IDT, Micro Linear, Motorola, Pericom, Philips, Sanyo, and Texas Instruments. These suppliers support parts which are compatible with DDR SDRAM and with each other. The parts generate differential clocks, they provide 2.5V SSTL_2 compatible voltage sources, and they offer buffering for registered modules.

Modules

The memory module market has been equally receptive to DDR SDRAM. The major module makers all have plans to support their customers with DDR-based modules. The list of supporters includes Advantage, Celestica, Dataram, Dynamem, Hokkins, Kingston, PNY, Progen, SiliconTech, Simple, Southland, Smart, Viking, Visiontek, and others.

DIMM Connectors

The new high-speed DDR DIMM connector has been carefully designed to have the same pin-pitch and the same form-factor as the current 168-pin DIMMs. This new DDR 184-pin module connector is currently supported by the two largest manufacturers of connectors: Amp and Molex.

Chipsets

Via Technologies and Opti are developing a DDR chipsets for the PC market. Alpha Processor, Inc. is developing a DDR based chipset to support their processors, and VLSI is developing chipsets for consumer applications. "There are a number of other chipsets in development based upon DDR memory," said Mian Quddus, senior strategic marketing manager at Samsung Semiconductor in San Jose, CA. "We'll see those introduced later this year."

Manufacturing and Test Equipment

New investments in manufacturing and test equipment aren't required to produce DDR memory because the chips are built on the same equipment currently used for SDRAM. This commonality in manufacturing makes the evolution to DDR easy and less costly. DRAM production can be readily shifted from SDRAM to DDR SDRAM, on the same production equipment, in response to growing demand.

Companies Using DDR Memory

Systems OEMs on the record as supporting DDR SDRAM with forthcoming products include: Cisco, Hitachi Server, IBM, Real 3D, Silicon Graphics, and Sun. Expect others to announce within months.

DRAM Suppliers

Semiconductor memory companies supporting DDR SDRAM include Fujitsu, Hitachi, Hyundai, IBM, LG, Micron, Mitsubishi, NEC, Samsung, Siemens, Toshiba, and Vanguard. All of the major memory chip suppliers are supporting DDR which ensures broad support and competitive pricing. Most of these companies are already sampling DDR and all 12 will be shipping in production volumes in 1999.

"Major suppliers in each product category are all supporting their customers with DDR enabling products," said David Dorrough, product marketing manager at Hyundai Electronics, San Jose. "All the DDR building blocks are in place and have been announced. DDR is now a complete solution and ready for the big-time."

Technology backgrounder is available upon request.