Elpida Memory and Rambus claim to have the industry’s fastest DRAM, the 512Mbit, 4.8GHz XDR DRAM, based on Rambus’ XDR memory architecture.

The chip will support a data transfer rate of 9.6Gbyte/s and the supplier is targeting it at high-definition television (HDTV) and game console applications.

“Elpida’s 4.8GHz XDR DRAM is an excellent fit for consumer electronics applications requiring high bandwidth for 3-D graphics, high-definition image processing, and advanced multimedia,” said Sharon Holt, senior vice president of worldwide sales, licensing and marketing at Rambus. 

70nm process technology 
 
The device is organised in 8-banks (x16/x8/x4 programmable), and with a 9.6Gbyte/s data transfer rate delivers six times the peak bandwidth of industry-standard DDR2-800 memory devices. It is manufactured using Elpida's 70nm process technology and is available in a 104-ball FBGA package.

It uses Differential Rambus Signaling Level (DRSL), which minimises signal swing and noise, and Octal Data Rate (ODR) technology which transfers eight bits of data on each clock cycle to achieve 4.8GHz operation with a 600MHz clock.

The 512Mbit 4.8GHz XDR DRAM devices will be available for sampling in December 2007. Volume production is expected to begin in April 2008.

See also: the Electronics Weekly focus on Digital TV, presenting a roundup of content related to digital TV technologies and developments.