Micron to ramp up DDR SDRAM production
- — 06 April, 2001 09:27
The increase in production is led by customer demand, and up to 30 per cent of Micron's DRAM chip production could be DDR chips by the end of the year, the company said in a statement. It did not say how many chips this translates to.
Micron already has at least one major customer lined up: it signed a deal with Microsoft to supply DDR memory for the XBox games console which is expected to ship later this year.
Micron's announcement comes days after Hynix Semiconductor, the South Korean chip maker formerly known as Hyundai Electronics, said it had begun supplying DDR chips in volume to Compaq and Hewlett-Packard.
DDR is one of two technologies competing in the next-generation memory market, and is supported by processor maker Advanced Micro Devices as well as many semiconductor makers. Rambus, with support from industry leader Intel, has developed a competing and proprietary technology called Rambus DRAM. At present, it is the only memory technology supported by Intel in chipsets for its Pentium 4 processor, although the company has a DDR compatible chipset in the works.
Micron, one of the biggest supporters of DDR, is keen to increase production to get the benefit of scale and reduce prices to the same level as current generation DRAM chips. Already the price is near, it said, and Jeff Mailloux, director of DRAM marketing at Micron, told IDG News Service at a conference in Taipei earlier this year that the company is dedicated to closing the gap.
