Micro DIMMs replace SO-DIMMs

2 Apr 2008 | 03:59 BST

By Charlie Demerjian in Shanghai

MOVE OVER SO-DIMM, the new SFF memory standard is here, welcome our new micro-DIMM overlords. Yup, time for a new form factor, and Qimonda is the first one showing them off.

Micro-DIMMs are made for the new ultra-small PC class like the EeePC and it's brethren. They are much smaller than laptops, lets call them crotchtops, don't have the room for a big bulky socket, much less two. A new standard had to be made.

That is where micro-DIMMs come in. They are not vastly smaller than SO-DIMMs, probably about a third less area, the size being most likely dictated by the memory chips vs anything more esoteric. The biggest change is that it moves from the edge connector that dictated memory connections since the first SIMM in the mid-80s to a surface mounted low profile connector. I am not sure if this is a good or bad thing, but it does save space.

Qimonda had the micro-DIMM pictured above at IDF, it is 1G of DDR2-800 memory. This makes me hopeful that you will get decent performance out of the crotchtops, memory this small is usually much slower than the prevailing standard. µ

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