Qimonda Squeezes Volts for 800 Mhz Supercomputing

The memory producer Quimonda have announced their partnership with Supermicro in developing memory modules with decreased supply voltage. The company has already scored a great success in reducing the power consumption from the regular 1.8 volts to the 1.5 volts value. Based on their research, a 16 percent of memory power shortage would lead to an overall reduction of 20 percent in terms of power consumption. Qimonda is supplying the industry's first 1.5V, 800 MHz DDR2 Fully Buffered Dual-In-Line Memory Modules (FB-DIMMs), that feature a low power consumption in terms of no performance loss. The company has already shipped the 1.5 volts memory modules to Supermicro in a 2 GB configuration to be used as demonstration at the Super Computing 2007 conference.

The tests performed by Supermicro on two of their systems, SuperServer 6015TW-INF and the SuperServer 6025W-NTR+, have revealed that system-level power savings when using Qimonda modules operating at 800 MHz were as much as 20 percent in a fully loaded system, which would reflect, on average, energy savings of up to 40 watts per system.

Alex Hsu, chief sales and marketing officer (CSMO) of Supermicro thinks that "Supermicro's green computing initiative is all about helping its customers reduce the cost of ownership for the data center and helping to preserve the environment for future generations. Qimonda has a reputation for delivering lower power memory solutions, which makes them a key vendor in our own drive to Keep IT Green". If the practical testing proves successful, the Quimonda and Supermicro initiative could change the face of modern technology forever. Although the power-saving 1.5 FB-DIMM memories have passed the preliminary testing stage, the Quimonda and Supermicro "forgot" to mention either the date when these devices will be available for purchase, or an estimative price for the new, environmentally-friendly memory cards.