Sony Corporation, Sony Computer Entertainment and Toshiba Corporation licensed from Rambus two new high-speed interfaces, codenamed Yellowstone and Redwood. At the moment these two interfaces are among the fastest interfaces in the world that can be implemented on a PCB. Both interfaces are expected to be utilised for future broadband applications with the code-named Cell microprocessor inside.

Currently at 3.20GHz data rates, with a roadmap to higher performance, Yellowstone memory signalling interface is much faster than the best available DDR or DDR-II solutions at the moment. Redwood is a high-speed parallel interface between multiple chips. This web-site reports that the parallel bus will provide roughly 4 to 8Gb/s of bandwidth (from 500MB to 1GB per second). According to Rambus, Redwood delivers a data rate about ten times faster than the latest processor busses, though, they do not provide any documents on their web-site. The company also claims that it maintains lower latency and lower power consumption than current solutions, while keeping high productivity and cost efficiency (compared to other links of same bandwidth).

Last year Toshiba already decided to integrate Rambus’ interface technology into their next-generation DRAM (see this news-story), and have now extended the partnership to the logic interface.

These technologies will be utilised in “next-generation systems that require high-speed processing of large graphics and audio data”, according to a spokesperson from Toshiba. Keeping in mind that Sony develops it monstrous PlayStation3 based on the Cell architecture these days and Toshiba provides them certain semiconductor devices, including high-speed memory, there are almost no doubts where Rambus’ technologies are coming to.

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