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Samsung Claims World's First 288Mb Rambus DRAM
Hugo writes "Samsung Electronics announced the completion of development of a 288Mb Direct Rambus® DRAM (RDRAM) component and 576MB Rambus In-line Memory Module (RIMM?) Module. A design rule of 0.17-micron is used. The data processing speed at each pin has been improved to 800Mb per second, so the device can process the equivalent of 6,550 newspaper pages of information per second." Samsung does a *lot* of predicting about future RAM, but seems to be moving right along. Check this story from June '98.
Yells the computer store clerk when this things hit the street and regular SDRAM prices take another dive.
Ahh if only the new BMW would do _that_ to the Corolla I can *almost* afford.
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
From what I have seen, the Windows kernel is VERY stable and fast. However, it's basically an extensible design, like a micro-kernel architecture, that is expected to remain stable with a variety of extensions by other companies, mostly in the form of drivers, CODECs, etc. My opinion is that's where Windows stability problems come from. Linux has an advantage here because of the open source aspect and because "core" Linux drivers (i.e. those that get distributed with the mainstream kernel source) tend to be looked at by very knowledgable individuals before being circulated. In the Windows world, anyone can deliver a driver, DLL, what have you and, since the source is never released, many common mistakes may never get fixed, or get fixed only after many users have suffered with the problem.
Just $0.02 from a MCSD (since 1996).
Please mod this post only if you think others should/n't read this. I have enough ego^H^H^Hkarma. Thanks!
Anyone have a technical reason why Samsung is using 288MB instead of 256MB? Looking at their press release doesn't help. I am not familiar enough with RAMBUS to know more...
0.17 micron seems small. Can they expect to produce enough of this? I thought I read that there are only a few fab plants that can produce 0.18 micron chips - I imagine it must be even smaller 0.17 micron chips.
RAMBUS - vaporware (or will I be shocked?).
-- Justin
Mu. P.S. The address you see is real. =)
Maybe they're talking about the advertising section as well. Takes more space to scan in and save all those pictures of brassiere models.
From the article:
"Sixteen 288Mb Direct Rambus® DRAM components can be configured together to create a 576MB module."
Can someone please explain to me how 16 x 288 = 576? Thanks!
Parity... Basicly, you take the least significant bit of the sum of the other 8 bits (or, to put it differently, you add the 8 data bits together, if it's even the parity bit is 0, else it's 1), and dump it in the parity bit.
>So they are marketting it as 288 when it can only store 256 of real data?
Of course they are...
Yes, but still, this press release meant to let the public know: look, we've made really cool ram. And they're making it look better than it is by doing it in bits.
How many bytes of data flow over Niagara Falls in a second? Now THAT's memory bandwidth!
Would an Empire State Building worth of magnetic core memory come close to one of these RIMMs?
If you outfitted pirahna with this RAM, would they be able to skeletonize a cow in less than a millifortnight?
For that matter, how many picoY2Ks of hype does this press release contain?
# df
total newspaper pages: 725580
newspaper pages used: 15887
newspaper pages free: 709693
--- Dirtside | "Spirituality" is the irrational belief in the supernatural
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
So they are marketting it as 288 when it can only store 256 of real data?
There's no reason for a sig here.
I personally don't build kernels to be small, I build them to be functional. I really dislike modular code and on "production" machines I even build the kernels without module support at all. It just makes things easier.
That being said, I bet you could build them damned small. But you know, I bet the core kernel code for windows NT is small too. It's the stuff they build around it that sucks.
Windows NT, from what I understand, is basically a modified VMS kernel, at least in 3.1 or 3.51. Notice how the kernel destabilized the further away you got from that release? As I understand it, it's because the Windows coders started to tinker around in the kernel and destabilized it.
Just my $.02
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What I don't like about rambus is how they seem to be pushing it not on its merits but because it'll be good for their (Intel's) bottom line. I also don't like the thought of paying at least 4 times as much per megabyte (though that would probably equalize). I like the SDRAM just fine, thanks.
That being said, it's very heartening that it seems to have almost no support in the industry at this point. Although putting 288mb on a chip isn't a small achievement...
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While PC100 SDRAM and 800MHz single-channel RAMBUS have the same theoretical peak rates of throughput, RAMBUS appears to be better at sustaining higher real-life throughput levels. On the other hand, SDRAM's latency is lower -- sometimes *much* lower (60ns vs 120ns) -- and for a large class of applications main memory random-access latency is a more important performance limitation than memory throughput. Just to be fair, there are also many applications (mostly floatingpoint-intensive workstation applications) which benefit more from high throughput than from low latency.
 
On the gripping hand, the growing disparity between the operational rates of memory busses and microprocessors is making latency increasingly important. In the next two years the time spent filling cache from main memory will comprise a significant fraction of total runtime. This paper is several years old, but thusfar the industry is proceeding according to the schedule predicted by its authors:
The Memory Wall
One thing to keep in mind when reading this paper is that SDRAM's low sequential access latencies are equivalent, in the context of this paper, to a form of caching. Think of it as extra caching going on in the memory module itself, and use 60ns as the latency of a main memory access (ie, a cache miss).
One thing that RAMBUS is supposed to do (but thusfar has not) is make processors and motherboards easier and less expensive to build. It is much, much easier to get an 8-bit-wide bus working correctly than a 128-bit-wide bus, and chip manufacturers are having to come up with new and gruesome ways of sinking more IO pins into their products, which is a costly pain in the ass. The PCB real estate consumed by a motherboard's 128-bit-wide bus isn't cheap, either. Whether RAMBUS will ever succeed in delivering on this particular promise remains to be seen.
-- Guges --
Don't even start comparing it to DDRAM (double-rate DRAM), which will be appearing soon and which can be produced on the same production line as SDRAM is with minimal retooling. This means, of course, manufacturers will love it.
RAMBUS is, plain and simple, a scam.
- A.P.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
That cracks me up. 'Well, I sent the motherboards in for an upgrade last week and we're still waiting on the RIMM job.'
Tasteless, yeah, I know... I am so ashamed of myself.
---
Tempfiles fugit.
This just in:
Samsung has began a new program to help American's afford their new 288Mb Rambus DRAM. We have been informed that Samsung is taking "trade ins" of whole human appendages and key organs. They say that for an arm, or a leg, they will trade a single 288Mb RDRAM. For any major organ, 2 288Mb RDRAM, and for essentail organs, 4 288Mb RDRAM modules.
SB.
Ars Technica had this link to an article about ram technologies. RAMBUS didn't look so good there.