Micron will start volume production of the 1-Gbit chip early next year. It will support data rates of 800 Mbits/s to 1,600 Mbits/s and clock frequencies of 400 to 800 MHz, respectively, doubling the speed from DDR2. Supply voltage will dip from 1.8V to 1.5V, which will initially make DDR3 more attractive for notebooks and servers because of lower power consumption and heat generation.

Configurations will come in x4, x8 and x16, supporting module densities from 512 Mbytes through 4 Gbytes and module types ranging from fully buffered DIMMs and registered DIMMs to unbuffered DIMMs and small outline DIMMs. Micron said a 2-Gbit DDR3 chip will be ready early next year.