Rambus Collaboration with Kinsgton to Develop Next Generation Threaded DDR3 Memory Module

With the increase capability of processor in PC computing, the need of higher bandwidth and powerful memory module are indeed crucial to ensure memory system is no longer bottleneck that limits the PC performance. In view of this, Rambus has collaborated with Kingston Technology to develop a new DDR3 DRAM memory technology targeted for mainstream PC market.

The new threaded memory technology is claimed to be able to boost up data throughput by a significant of 50 percent as compared to conventional DDR3 memory module. Furthermore, the power consumption has been lowered by 20 percent, which makes it a true thermally efficient module to be added into system without affecting the total system power drawn significantly. No detailed hardware architeacture information being disclosed yet but the company claimed that it utilizes a new way to partition the standard DDR3 devices with multiple channels using sharable command and address lines to speed up the random memory access from host controller to memory regions. No doublt, this is especially useful for the multi-core systems with dual-threading per module to employ parallelism for faster memory access without being limited by single pipeline.

Only one drawback, the new technology requires new memory controller with more complex design and board manufacturers will have to pay royalty to Rambus for its IP (Intellectual Property) which would definitely impose additional cost to the end implementation. No pricing and availability yet, Rambus and Kingston will demonstrate the new technology during the upcoming IDF (Intel Developer Forum) event held in San Francisco next week.