Elpida Completes Development of 1Gb GDDR5 Chip, Mass Production Scheduled on Q2 2010.

Elpida’s First 1Gb GDDR5 Chips to Work at 6GHz

[11/19/2009 10:31 PM]
by Anton Shilov

Elpida Memory, the largest maker of dynamic random access memory (DRAM), in Japan, said Thursday that it had completed development of its first GDDR5 chip. Mass production of the new premium memory ICs will start in the second quarter of next year.

Elpida’s first GDDR5 memory chip will sport 1Gb density (two I/O configurations available: 32Mb x32 and 64Mb x16) and will be able to operate at 6GHz effective clock-speed (1500MHz). The new graphic memory device marks Elpida's first step in the GDDR market.

For Elpida it is rather logical to start making premium GDDR memory since the company already produces high-speed RDRAM as well as XDR DRAM developed by Rambus and has experience in making complex memory that operates at very high frequencies. GDDR memory is used not only on add-in graphics cards, but also inside video game consoles, thus, total available market such memory type is rather high.

After concluding an evaluation at the Munich Design Center, sample shipments will start in December and mass production is expected to begin in the second quarter (April-June) of CY 2010. It is projected that Winbond will produce GDDR5 memory for Elpida at its Taiwanese fabs.

Tags: Elpida, GDDR, Winbond, Qimonda