Hynix to boost DDR 400 production

Hynix is ramping up the production of 400MHz DDR SDRAM on the back of expectations that demand for this type of memory will balloon during the rest of the year, the company said yesterday.

The Korean chip maker believes demand for 400MHz DDR will be driven by Intel's latest Pentium 4 chipset families, the i865 and i875, which support the processor's 200MHz frontside bus, quad-pumped for an effective bus speed of 800MHz. That's naturally aligned to 400MHz DDR's 200MHz bus speed.

So too is AMD's Athlon XP, which now supports a 400MHz frontside bus.

Hynix reckons that DDR 400 will account for 35 per cent of DDR sales by the end of the year, and it's upping its production capacity accordingly. DDR chips make up 80 per cent of its DRAM output, the company said. It now wants DDR 400 to account for 90 per cent of that figure, having originally set a 60 per cent year-end target.

Hynix also said that its 512Mb DDR 400 memory chips have been given the thumbs up by Intel. The chip giant validated Hynix?s 256Mb DDR 400 part back in February. ®