Following yesterday's reports that a number of chip-set vendors, including VIA, Acer and SIS, are backing the PC133 SDRAM specification as a short-term alternative to Rambus' Direct DRAM (see Chip-set vendors prepare for Rambus shortage), it has emerged that IBM will be producing 133MHz SDRAM memory products. According to US magazine Maximum PC, Big Blue has already produced PC133 samples and intends to begin volume production in time for the second quarter. That's the time-frame Intel has set for the release of its Camino chip-set, the first to incorporate Direct DRAM, chosen by the Great Satan of Chips as the next memory standard. As reported yesterday, even Intel is working on a transitional memory technology, S-RIMM, which allows SDRAM memory chips to be placed on a Rambus Inline Memory Module (RIMM). "Our memory customers have expressed a strong interest in PC133 as an evolutionary step between PC100 and DDR [Double Data DRAMs, another possible intermediary step between SDRAM and Rambus]," said IBM marketing manager Walter Lange, quoted in Maximum PC. ®