Who says memory is a commodity? Announcements in the DRAM and FB-DIMM space at this week’s Intel Developer Forum go to show that the memory market has more going on than just flash.

“People now realize they can differentiate based on DRAM,” Tim Trill, director of DRAM marketing at Samsung Semiconductor Inc., told Electronic News. “Finally, you can get a return on the capex that we have been piling back all these years and you can really dispel the myth that DRAM is a commodity.”

Trill believes that the return on investment with unique configurations allows a targeted customer approach that was not possible in earlier periods when memory choices were slim.

“Now that the appetite has been wet, you won’t see consolidation in DRAM technology. You’ll see continued expansion of the product mix. You’ll see more and more choice come to market to fill all these segments,” he said.

Trill specifically came to IDF to discuss fully buffered dual-In-line memory modules (FB-DIMM). Samsung’s presence was echoed by other memory players making FB-DIMM news, including Micron Technology and Infineon Technologies.

Micron claimed 4GByte density FB-DIMMs using 1Gbit DDR2-533 components on Monday. On the same day, Infineon said it is sampling the industry's only Double Data Rate 2 FB-DIMMs with all key components designed and manufactured by a single DRAM supplier. Infineon’s memory is available in densities ranging from 512MBytes to 4GBytes.

“System engineers are beginning to realize with FB-DIMM they don’t have to trade off between frequency and density,” Trill said. “All of a sudden, there’s a sense of liberation.”

By: DocMemory
Copyright © 2023 CST, Inc. All Rights Reserved