Differences of opinion dog DDR2 memory ramp times

Now a report from iSuppli says that desktop PCs will soak up DDR 400 for most of 2004, while performance desktops will start to use DDR2 memory late next year.

The semiconductor firms call this "ramping". English is really a fabtastic language and lets you turn practically every noun into a verb - hence while the chip firms can "ramp", have you, personally, ever been ramped?

We think memory companies love the ramping word because it's got RAM inside.

Micron's a bit more optimistic than iSuppli, as you'd expect. It told us that Intel's Grantsdale chipset will give DDR2 a push in Q2 of next year, and while iSuppli reckons that DDR 266 will dominate the notebook market by the end of 2004, we understand that we'll see DDR2 in high end notebooks by Q3 of next year.

Isuppli thinks that DDR200/266 will fill up server sockets by the end of next year, but we also understand that there are plans to use DDR2 in servers, perhaps late next year.

According to iSuppli, GDDR II will have 12% of the graphics market in 2004 - again, Micron appears to think differently, with the two major firms - ATI and Nvidia, going for this stuff faster than most expect.

In September, Intel put a third of a million into Micron for future DDR development and the 12-inch fab it has in Mannassee, Virgin, has started production, the Boise firm told us earlier in the week.

Here we are at the end of October, and there's still no real indication whether it's just that old seasonality that's selling more chips, motherboards and the like.

The system builders we met in Barcelona last week were still a bit down in the mouth, and things, they reckon are still pretty slow.

We wonder if the vendors like Intel, Micron and Nvidia are ramping up the hype or there really is a sea change ahead for the PC industry. µ