Samsung claims it owns DDR market

QUANTITATIVE DATA about validation and market penetration of DDR (double data rate) memory says Samsung is in the lead, it claims.

The company figures appear to show it is in the lead in making and selling DDR by as much as three to one - and that's just in the PC marketplace it reckons. The graphics market, with its sales for Xboxes, puts it street aheads, it claims.

The firm made these announcements today (25th of March in Asia) as it said Intel has validated its first 512Mbit DDR SDRAM device, using .12 micron (120 nanometer) technology.

It claims that it now has 16 "fully validated" DDR devices ranging from 128Mbit to 512Mbit.

The figures from Dataquest reveal a sea-change at the market research company. Only last year, it was predicting a slow take up on DDR memory but now Samsung reckons its figures will show that the memory type will account for over 40 per cent during 2002, and it also appears to have endorsed Samsung - saying that it will have a 40 per cent market share.

The huge Korean chaebol is a little sore about Micron or Nanya claiming to be first to market, saying it has got there first.

It offers the PC1600, PC2100, PC2700 and the PC3200 chips now, it reckons.

Intel is a major "validator" of DDR200/266, after totally reversing its previous stance on the memory type over the last 18 months.

Figures we've seen show that out of 42 DIMMs and SO-DIMMs it has validated, Samsung accounts for 51 out of 139, with Hynix only managing 15 and Micron eight.

The "next closest vendor" is marked with the big NDA letter, so guessing who this is hard to figure out without some thought.

Isn't INTC an investor in Samsung? It certainly was, in the good old Wild West Rambus days… µ