Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. said Tuesday (April 21) it is ramping up 50-nm class production of DDR3 memory chips in response to increased demand stemming from Intel Corp.'s launch of the Xeon processor 5500 series.

DDR3 is the third generation of double-data rate (DDR) synchronous memory. Samsung and others believe that DDR3 will become the mainstream DRAM technology by the end of this year. Some analysts, including Edwin Mok of Needham & Co. LLC, have suggested that DDR3 will not capture meaningful market share this year.

Samsung said its DDR3 enables OEMs to design servers that use up to 192 gigabytes per system and provides a 60 percent improvement in lower power consumption with double the system (speeds up to 133 megabits per second) performance compared with its predecessor, DDR2.

"In conjunction with use of the Xeon processor 5500 series, DDR3 has the potential to dramatically improve the efficiency of data transactions in virtually any enterprise server application," said Jim Elliott, vice president of memory marketing for Samsung's U.S. subsidiary, Samsung Semiconductor Inc., in a statement.

Intel last month formerly rolled out server versions of its 45-nm Nehalem processors. The Xeon 5500 chips integrate memory controllers and a high-speed interconnect.

Forty 50-nm class Samsung DDR3 solutions have been validated to work with the Intel 5500 platform, Samsung said. The Samsung DDR3 devices that have passed Intel's validation program include 1- and and 2-Gb DRAM chips, as well as 1-, 2-, 4-, 8- and 16-GB registered dual-inline memory modules (DIMMs) and 1-, 2- and 4-GB unbuffered DIMMs, according to the company.

Newly validated DDR3 chips are available at speeds of 800, 1066 and 1333 megabits per second and can offer up to a 40 percent power savings at 1333-Mbps, compared to 60-nm-class DDR3 chips, Samsung said.

By: DocMemory
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