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1T-SRAM vs. RDRAM and DDR-SDRAM?

Posted by Cliff on from the comparisons-galore dept.

Vegan Pagan asks: "We've heard plenty about RDRAM and DDR-SDRAM, but what about 1T-SRAM? According to conjecture, a fan report and a press release, it makes Gamecube efficient, but are there any tests that compare 1T-SRAM to RDRAM and DDR-SDRAM?" According to the fan-written report, 1T-SRAM uses a combination of a single transistor cell and "multibank" architecture to deliver low latency in a cheaper chip with less complex circuitry. Sounds good, but has anyone here put one of these things through it's paces? How well does it live up to the hype, especially in comparison with time-proven memory architectures?

5 comments

  1. On motherboards and in chips. by Vegan+Pagan · · Score: 5, Interesting

    In Gamecube, 1T-SRAM is used inside the MPU as texture cache and frame buffer, and it's main memory on the motherboard. Could this also work for PCs, servers and Macs? Imagine having 1T-SRAM on the motherboard, and then your GPU has 32 or 64 MB of 1T-SRAM built in! Even if it was just chips on the video card, it would still be good.

    But again, this is all speculation. Any tests?

    1. Re:On motherboards and in chips. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not sure, but I think SGI's do something like that.

      ...But I could be wrong.

  2. The capacity doesn't compare to SDRAM by hamjudo · · Score: 1
    This memory competes with other forms of static RAM, but not SDRAM or RDRAM. The highest capacity chip MoSys sells is only one Megabyte.

    Static RAM has faster access times than DDR-SDRAM, so it is appropriate for some uses.

    I don't know how this technology compares with other static RAM technologies.

  3. 12 MB per chip by Vegan+Pagan · · Score: 2

    Untrue, see this:

    http://www.segatech.com/gamecube/gamecube_mother bo ard.jpg

    Gamecube has 24 MB of on-motherboard Mosys RAM. See those Mosys chips at the top of the pic? If they're the only Mosys chips besides the ATI/NEC chip (which has 3 MB), then they're 12 MB apiece, not 1 MB apiece.

    1. Re:12 MB per chip by hamjudo · · Score: 1

      Oops, my bad. I read the page www.mosys.com/discrete.html too fast. The biggest part listed there is 9 Mbytes, not 9Mbits. Also, the page says Last Updated on 12/11/00 .