Eleven DRAM manufacturers have pledged their support for the DDR (double data rate) SDRAM standard, despite the rise and rise of Direct Rambus. Fujitsu, Hitachi, Hyundai, Big Blue, LG, Micron, Mitsubishi, NEC, Samsung, Siemens and Toshiba all said they would use the standard, which was developed by the Joint Electronic Device Engineering Council (JEDEC). And SGI said it would also develop systems using DDR. Last August, Samsung actually shipped the first of its 64Mb parts using DDR at a speed of 266MHz. Manufacturers are forced to pay royalties of around two per cent when they license Rambus technology, while DDR is a cheaper alternative. However, most PC vendors are expected to use the Direct Rambus technology because it offers vastly superior memory speeds to DDR. ®