Qimonda to manufacture 75 nm XDR memory

Los Altos (CA) - Qimonda joins Samsung and Elpida as a mass manufacturer of Rambus XDR memory technology. The company intends to supply the memory modules into the game console, digital television, set-top box and PC graphics market.

Qimonda’s XDR memory modules will follow Rambus XDR (I) specification, running at 3.2 GHz - which is faster than the first XDR modules (2.4 GHz) that sampled early in 2005, but match the clock speed requirement of the currently most important XDR application, Sony’s Playstation 3.

Quimonda said that it will produce the memory modules in a 75 nm process. Competitors Samsung and Elpida currently ship XDR in 90 nm and charge, according to industry sources, about $25 for one 64 MB module. Toshiba recently said that it will produce XDR memory for "consumer, computing and communications applications" in 65 nm.

At least at this time, the use of XDR memory is limited to Sony’s Playstation 3 console, which integrates four 512 Mb modules for a total capacity of 256 MB. There has been a consistent rumor that XDR could be considered by either AMD/ATI and /or Nvidia for use in next-generation graphics cards, but at least until today, there has been no confirmation by either company that this will actually happen.

GDDR3 memory is still in use in Nvidia’s latest graphics cards and ATI has moved to GDDR4, which is being pushed by Samsung and recently was introduced in ATI’s latest graphics cards.