14 DAY TRIAL // Qimonda announced that it started shipping samples of its upcoming power-saving DDR3 SO-DIMM memory to its key partners and original equipment manufacturers. This is a refurbished version of their previous DDR3 memory modules, that is much improved in terms of power-saving.
Power efficiency is extremely important for this type of memory modules, since they will operate inside notebooks and ultra-mobile PCs. The low energy consumption will account for an increased battery lifetime. The memory modules have started shipping in 1GB and 2GB samples with general availability yet to be announced.
"Qimonda's 1GB and 2GB SO-DIMMs enable customers to make full use of the significantly reduced power consumption and increased bandwidth of DDR3," said Michael Buckermann, Vice President of Business Unit Computing at Qimonda. "Qimonda is fully supporting its customers' launch of next-generation mobile computing applications, with DDR3 based notebooks expected to be introduced to the market in the first half of 2008."
The 1GB and the 2 GB SO-DIMM modules are built with 1Gbit DDR3 chips manufactured "in-house" at the Qimonda facilities using the 75-nanometer process node. This allows the chips work at much lower power than the generic memory modules. For instance, an average DDR2 memory module would work at a standard 1.8 volt power, while a DDR3 module would eat up at least 2.1 volts when not overclocked. The Qimonda DDR3 SO-DIMMs only take up 1.5 volts, which translates in an energy efficiency of 25 percent sharp.
The Qimonda DDR3 SDRAM modules can offer a maximum data transfer rate of up to 1.600 Mb/s, that is almost double than today's DDR2 performance. The memory chips have been developed jointly by Qimonda and Nanya Technologies and feature high processing speeds, such as Dynamic ODT (On Die Termination), that enhances signal integrity on the data bus required to run 2 DIMMs per channel at very high data rates.