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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.
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.
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"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.
My guess would be that it's parity ram. 256 = 32 * 8. 288 = 32 * 9. Extra bit for parity checking and all.
Ars Technica had this link to an article about ram technologies. RAMBUS didn't look so good there.