SLDRAM designing underway at MOSAID
09/01/1998
SLDRAM designing underway at MOSAID
International consortium SLDRAM Inc. has signed a contract with MOSAID Technologies to design the open standard that will establish the next generation of solutions for computer memory. MOSAID is an independent memory chip design house. The $3.9 million (Canadian) contract calls for MOSAID to create a reference design for a 400-Mbit/sec/pin 64-Mbit synchronous link dynamic random access memory (SLDRAM) prototype.
SLDRAM is particularly suited for high-end personal computers, servers, workstations, and consumer electronics. It will provide high-performance memory solutions for microprocessors by enabling bus data processing rates of 400-800 MHz, a four to eight times increase over the current standard SDRAM. SLDRAM can provide data transfer rates of up to 3.2 Gbit/sec, depending on the memory configuration.
MOSAID has assigned all new intellectual property created in the course of developing the prototype to SLDRAM Inc. Members will have access to this intellectual property, accelerating adoption of the open standard by the electronics industry. As shown in the table, SLDRAM Inc. brings memory users and producers together to define next generation high-performance, scaleable, open-standard memory architecture.
To develop the SLDRAM industry prototype, MOSAID is using an advanced 0.25-?m DRAM process developed jointly by Siemens, IBM, and Toshiba. The prototype will be used to verify and validate SLDRAM-based systems and will provide the foundation for members to develop their own SLDRAM products.
In related news, MOSAID recently completed the design of its first 256-Mbit DRAM chip - an inaugural double data rate (DDR) SDRAM design. George Cwynar, president and CEO of MOSAID, says, "Just as regular SDRAM memory is now superseding the older EDO DRAM products, DDR SDRAM will meet the higher performance required by future computer systems. Because DDR SDRAM is the next evolutionary step from SDRAM, systems will be able to support both SDRAM and DDR SDRAM, making the transition less costly." The SLDRAM design project now underway at MOSAID is the next step in the sequence of computer memory. - P.B.