Samsung says it's first with DDR3 DRAM

KOREAN GIANT Samsung said it has produced a 512Mbit DDR3 memory device, which it claims, is the first out of the DRAM fabs.

The prototype works at 1066Mbps and chips based on it will be available early next year, it said. Samsung claims DDR3 will become the standard for low power memory chips for PCs, whether they are notebooks, desktops or servers.

Like many other memory manufacturers, Samsung is attempting to shift the PC industry over to using DDR2, which is supported by several high end X86 based processors.

The DDR3 chips will work at 1.5 volts, and Samsung said that its operational speed is double that of DDR2 and four times that of DDR. Samsung will build its version of these chips using 80 nanometre process technology.

It said that market researchers predict the chip will represent 65 per cent of the whole DRAM market by 2009. µ