Rambus CEO: the graphics market easier way for us to (get) into the PC

[Brimstone]

There is an interview up with the Rambus CEO. He mentions Rambus has a better chance achieving volume by getting into the graphics market with XDR2.

Looking toward the future for a second, XDR will be part of the PlayStation 3, but who else is looking at it?
Hughes: We came out with the second variation called DDR, excuse me XDR2, which is focused on the graphics market. As we negotiate with DRAM companies, including the ability to manufacture high-performance graphics memory at a higher margin, we have to speak to the graphics companies. It's a chicken-and-egg problem.

How about the PC market, where XDR would serve as main memory? I haven't seen XDR show up on product road maps yet.
Hughes: It's even a bigger chicken-and-an-egg problem. The demand, and the need for supply, is at least two to three (times) larger with the (PC) manufacturers. In the graphics market, by virtue of its smaller size, we think that is the easier way for us to (get) into the PC.

LINK

Sony Corp. (Tokyo) is using XDR technology in the Playstation 3, but the game machine was delayed until November.

“XDR has been delayed [due to delays at Sony],” Kang said during a presentation at SEMI’s recent Strategic Business Conference here. “I don’t see any applications for XDR beyond Sony. It’s a niche product.”

LINK

 

[Maintank]

Disregarding what I consider unethical nature of this company. I have always wondered why RAMBUS memory has never made it into video cards?

 

[trumphsiao]

Disregarding what I consider unethical nature of this company. I have always wondered why RAMBUS memory has never made it into video cards?

XDR MC will consume 2 times more bigger die size than GDDR style MC.

 

[{Sniping}Waste]

Disregarding what I consider unethical nature of this company. I have always wondered why RAMBUS memory has never made it into video cards?

Because Rambus sucks!!

If you knew how Rambus treats the Fabs that make memory ICs then you will know why Rumbus suck big time. Thats why very few companys with fabs will produce there ICs. Rambus ICs don't fab very will and has low yeilds. If you need help with Rambus layout, you have to pay $500 an hour for on the phone teck support.

 

[AlNom]

$500/hour!? What do they do... NOT pay the engineers and force them to do tech support in their time

 

[compres]

Is it even faster than GDDR? One would think no matter how much rambus "sucks", with the crazy hunger for video BW in graphics, it would at least appear mentioned in tentative roadmaps.

 

[{Sniping}Waste]

$500/hour!? What do they do... NOT pay the engineers and force them to do tech support in their time

The fabs pay Rambus to produce Rambus ICs becaus Rambus has no fabs so why would you charge for help to alow your ram to be fabbed and $500 an hour at that? Rambus is just a pataint company and produces nothing. You would think that would help in any way they can so there ram ICs can be made and sold.

 

[NANOTEC]

If there is a realworld benefit from using XDR, then companiies will use it if the price is competitive. If not then they won't. Claimed benefits on paper does not always translate to real benefits in practice. In practice, it's about price performance.

 

[Guden Oden]

Snipingwaste, how about you back up your claims with some evidence.

Right now, all your posts in this thread amounts to is libel against rambus.

 

[_xxx_]

I already speculated about possible use of XDR in the upcoming nV products, they already have the experience with the interface thanks to PS3 and could probably easily implement it. But that will as always be a question of balance between involved costs and performance benefits.

 

[AlexV]

I`m not uptodate with things related to Rambus, but didn`t they use to have quite a latency penalty when compared to DDR?

 

[_xxx_]

I`m not uptodate with things related to Rambus, but didn`t they use to have quite a latency penalty when compared to DDR?

1.25 - 3.3ns (XDR) sounds rather good

EDIT: DDR has 10ns and DDR2 15ns

 

[FrameBuffer]

Snipingwaste, how about you back up your claims with some evidence.

Right now, all your posts in this thread amounts to is libel against rambus.

well there's always one in the crowd somewhere /wink ;p

 

[SugarCoat]

1.25 - 3.3ns (XDR) sounds rather good

EDIT: DDR has 10ns and DDR2 15ns

System memory and graphic memory have different latency times.

I`m not uptodate with things related to Rambus, but didn`t they use to have quite a latency penalty when compared to DDR?

Yes. Older systems had one bus which had to carry data through all the memory modules before taking it back to the controller over the same stream. It still operates this way but over two seperate bus' with a much improved path to the memory controller once it finishes running through the modules. In terms of graphic memory only, XDR still does have a considerably higher memory latency.


People seem to think Nvidia is going to jump on it due to the RSX, but i wouldnt be so sure. Things we know is that DDR3 will be in use by the end of this year in systems, and GDDR4 should be knocking at the 3GHz door (samsung actually broke this at 3.2GHz on 80nm .6ns test models). DDR3 system memory should also solve quite a few problems DDR2 has over DDR1 such as; DDR3 has about an 8ns access time, power consumption will further be reduced about 40% (1.4V-1.5V) over DDR2, and an 8bit prefetch buffer over DDR2s 4bit and DDRs 2bit. There are just to many companies/fabs dedicated to DDR technology i really dont see how XDR will stand a chance for any other usage within the next 5 years. I'm sure its far cheaper to advance DDR technology then to revert to XDR. From what i know is the latency of the new GDDR4 modules will be about 50% less then the best XDR can produce while sucking up less juice.

A large part of the lust for XDR is based very much around its raw speed. For example 3200MHz GDDR4 doesnt look like much against 6400MHz XDR. But add in the ~.6ns vs ~2.5ns latency and you have something else entirely.

 

[sireric]

Disregarding what I consider unethical nature of this company. I have always wondered why RAMBUS memory has never made it into video cards?

We used them at SGI back in the mid 90's. Product worked well at the end, but it was quite a challenge. N64 also used them, I believe.

 

[kemist]

A large part of the lust for XDR is based very much around its raw speed. For example 3200MHz GDDR4 doesnt look like much against 6400MHz XDR. But add in the ~.6ns vs ~2.5ns latency and you have something else entirely.

I thought it was much easier to hide latency on video cards and that bandwidth was the main limiting factor. Is this becoming less true with increased clockspeeds or was this wrong?

 

[_xxx_]

System memory and graphic memory have different latency times.

Oops, yeah. The values are for "non-gfx" DDR

But still, XDR latency ain't that bad. And XDR2 should be better.