Elpida preps low-amp DDR SDRAM for portables
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Posted in System Builder, 14th January 2005 10:41 GMT
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Elpida has begun sampling 256Mb DDR SDRAM chips with a technology claimed to yield significant battery life benefits for notebooks and other portable devices.
The technology, dubbed Super Self-refresh (SSR), adjusts the standard on-board self-refresh system according to the chip's operating temperature. At lower temperatures, only a smaller current is required to refresh the memory cells, ranging from 40µA at 25°C to 150µA at 70°C and 250µA at 85°C, Elpida said.
The upshot is that SSR-equipped SDRAM chips use a self-refresh current 95 per cent lower than that of regular SDRAM devices. In turn, this "enables a drastic change in scale for battery backup requirements", Jun Kitano, director of technical marketing for Elpida Memory (USA) said in a statement.
The 256Mb SSR samples are fabbed using Elpida's 110nm process and support clock frequencies of up to 400MHz in a variety of CAS latencies and burst lengths. Elpida said it would also offer a 512Mb version built using two 256Mb parts in the company's double-density package.
The chips go into volume production in March, selling for $17 (400MHz) or $14 (333MHz and 266MHz). ®
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