Micron Technology Inc claims that its new PC266 double data rate (DDR) synchronous DRAMs offer more bandwidth than the equivalent Rambus DRAMs, championed by Intel Corp and others. Controversy has raged over the performance claims made for Rambus, with some research suggesting that in ‘real world’ applications, Rambus offers no significant problem increase over existing PC100 SDRAMs. The delay of Intel’s Rambus chipset for PCs – the 820 – has not helped matters, leaving PC OEM vendors scrambling for alternatives.
Now Micron is claiming that the PC266 chips that it has developed in-house offer bandwidth of 2.1Gb per second, where Rambus provides a throughput rate of 1.2Gbps to 1.6Gbps. Via Technologies Inc says that it will show a PC266 chipset at Comdex. Intel is not expected to deliver a PC266 chipset until early 2001. PC266 is a type of SDRAM that supports data transfers on both edges of each clock cycle, effectively doubling the memory chip’s data throughput. รก
