by Anton Shilov
01/09/2003 | 07:22 PM
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). <%BANNER[article]%>
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.