Rambus, a leading designer of memory and interface technologies, said on Wednesday that its partners among makers of dynamic random access memory (DRAM) have shipped 100 millionth XDR memory chip. Nevertheless, despite of shipments milestone, adoption of XDR DRAM is still very low and the major customer for the memory type remains Sony PlayStation 3 video game system.

At present, XDR memory is used inside Sony PlayStation 3 computer entertainment system, certain DLP projectors, Teradici PC-over-IP computing systems, Toshiba's Qosmio laptop PCs with SpursEngine processors inside as well as Toshiba’s HDTVs featuring SpursEngine chip. Now that Qimonda has stopped production, Elpida Memory and Samsung Electronics are the only suppliers of XDR.

Sony Computer Entertainment has so far shipped around 23 million, or slightly more, PlayStation 3 game systems, each of which features four 512Mb XDR memory chips, or 256MB of XDR memory in total. Therefore, 92 million XDR chips, the vast majority of the supplied amount, have been installed into the PS3. Other consumer electronics and computing applications consumed considerably less amount of XDR DRAM.

XDR DRAM can operate at 3.20GHz to 6.40GHz clock-speeds, providing industry leading bandwidth per pin, which is a benefit for networking and consumer applications. The XDR memory architecture features a number of advanced technologies built on patented Rambus innovations that include low-voltage, low-power differential Rambus signaling level (DRSL), octal data rate (ODR) technology that transfers eight bits of data each clock cycle, FlexPhase circuit technology for precise on-chip alignment of data with clock and dynamic-point-to-point (DPP) for both enhanced signal integrity and scalability.

“The XDR memory architecture has proven an ideal solution for a broad range of products needing blazing fast speeds and excellent power efficiency. No other memory technology provides the flexibility the XDR architecture offers to system and chip designers,” said Sharon Holt, senior vice president of Licensing and Marketing at Rambus.

Tags: Rambus, XDR, Sony, Playstation, DRAM