Power saving DRAMs start shipping

THE FIRM which doesn’t follow the universal rule of putting a “u” after a “q” because otherwise its name would be a rude word, said it’s started shipping 1GB and 2GB power-saving DDR3 SO-DIMMs.

SO-DIMMs are used in notebooks and these one’s do not seem to be so dim, said Qimonda.

Qimonda said it’s optimised the memory chips for reduced power consumption and power efficiency. DDR2, the previous generation of DRAM, uses a 1.8V power supply, while DDR3 uses 1.5 volts.

But, said a rep from the firm, these SO-DIMMs have been optimised to reduce power consumption by “at least 30 and up to more than 50 per cent”, compared to DDR2 SO-DIMMs.

The devices, co-designed by Taiwanese firm Nanya, have data transfer rates of up to 1,600Mb/s. µ