Rambus has signed both a patent and a technology license agreement with IBM. According to Frank Ferro, senior director of product management at Rambus, the agreement authorizes the integration of Rambus’ memory and serial link interface technologies.
Memory + Interfaces
AnandTech analyzes DDR4 and beyond
Writing for AnandTech, Ian Cutress recently explained why DDR4 was first launched in the enthusiast space. “On the server side, any opportunity to use lower power and drive cooling costs down is a positive, so aiming at [Intel] Xeons and high-end consumer platforms was priority number one,” he said.
Mobile DRAM industry valued at over $3.6 billion
DRAMeXchange, a division of TrendForce, recently confirmed worldwide mobile DRAM revenue of US$3.607 billion in the fourth quarter of 2014 – representing 27.8% of DRAM industry value and a 4.2% quarterly increase. In addition, mobile DRAM made up nearly 40% of all DRAM shipments.
From GDDR to HBM
A recent KitGuru report suggests AMD has designed its upcoming Radeon R9 380X with high bandwidth memory, or HBM, a next-gen stacked DRAM memory standard. “Although HBM provides DDR3 – like bit rate per pin (HBM1=1GHz, HBM2=2GHz), the standard more than compensates with its channel of 128 bits each,” Loren Shalinsky, a Strategic Development Director at Rambus, explained. “This results in an interface that can support 1024 bits x 2GHz = 2048 Gbits/sec (256GB/sec). The HBM stack (as defined in HBM2) can actually have up to 8 die in the stack. The standard doesn’t specify how many channels are on each die.”
R+ DDR4/3 PHY developed on Samsung’s 28nm LPP process
Rambus has officially confirmed that its R+™ DDR4/3 PHY was developed using Samsung’s 28nm LPP process. “Our ongoing collaboration with Samsung has yielded a robust, production-ready R+ DDR4/3 PHY on the power-performance optimized 28nm Low Power Plus (LPP) process,” Loren Shalinsky, a Strategic Development Director at Rambus, explained.
Rambus ReRAM eyes mainstream adoption
Writing for Electronics 360 (IHS), Peter Clarke reports that Rambus has signed up customers for its metal-oxide based resistive RAM technology (ReRAM). “[For example, Rambus] signed an architectural license with Tezzaron Semiconductor Corp. (Naperville, Illinois), a supplier of 3D and 2.5D memory, memory subsystems and memory-intensive SOCs,” said Clarke.
