Memory

Financial analysts believe that the rumoured takeover of Micron Technology by China-based Tsinghua Unigroup could lead to a major change of Micron’s policies in regards of expansion of production capacities. If Tsinghua acquires Micron and starts to build new fabs to gain market share, this could result in oversupply of …

Tsinghua Unigroup, a China-based investment company that controls Spreadtrum Communications and RDA Microelectronics, reportedly wants to acquire Micron Technology, the world’s third largest maker of DRAM and the No. 4 maker of NAND flash. China may need Micron in a bid to boost its homegrown memory industry and secure supply …

Despite of the fact that personal computer makers are now buying dynamic random access memory in a bid to support demand during the back-to-school season, DRAM prices continue to drop. Not only weak demand impacts DRAM prices negatively. All memory makers are transiting to thinner manufacturing technologies and Samsung even …

The year 2014 was very favourable for producers of dynamic random access memory as well as for makers of various DRAM modules thanks to rather high prices and stable demand for personal computers and other devices. Kingston Technology remained the top producer of memory modules on the planet with nearly …

Micron Technology, the world’s third largest maker of computer memory, plans to close its process technology gap with market leader Samsung Electronics with its next-generation fabrication technology in the coming years. The firm hopes that its new manufacturing process will help it to lower costs and increase performance of its …

Micron Technology has announced that it had begun commercial shipments of GDDR5 chips made using 20nm process technology. The company did not reveal any details, but it is highly likely that Micron initiated shipments of its 8Gb GDDR5 chips several weeks ago. “We commenced shipments of our first 20 nanometer …

Micron Technology has been rather cautious about using triple-level-cell (TLC) NAND flash in solid-state drives and for a long time only used such memory for various removable storage applications. However, it appears that the company has finally solved all the challenges with such cheap NAND and plans to introduce an …

DDR4 memory is yet to become mainstream DRAM technology, but Samsung Electronics is reportedly reducing prices of its DDR4 chips in a bid to gain market share. Samsung’s actions may trigger further drops of memory pricing in the future. At present DDR4 memory is used only by high-end desktop as …

G.Skill this week announced that an overclocker has managed to push its 4GB DDR4 memory module to 4.43GHz, a new world record for this memory type. The overclocker used current-generation high-end desktop platform, so it is possible to expect that later this year this record will be beaten. Nick Shih, …

SK Hynix, one of the world’s major producers of memory, on Tuesday said that it had begun volume shipments of its high-bandwidth memory (HBM) designed for bandwidth-demanding applications. The first products to use HBM will be AMD’s Radeon R9 Fury-series graphics cards, but eventually other devices will utilize the new …

Some market observers believe that prices of dynamic random access memory are about to increase, which will significantly improve profitability of DRAM producers. While this is essentially correct, there are reports that Samsung Electronics is dropping prices of memory in a bid to boost revenues, which could hurt other manufacturers' …

When Patriot Memory was founded in 1985 – some 30 years ago – its main goal was to provide high-performance random access memory solutions for PCs. When I first met with Patriot Memory reps in person about a decade ago, the company was all about offering advanced memory modules, but …

G.Skill revealed its ultimate DDR4 memory kits at the Computex trade-show this week. The upcoming DDR4 kits from the renowned maker of advanced DRAM for enthusiasts, will be able to operate at clock-rates up to 3.80GHz in quad-channel mode. Besides, the company showcased the world’s first and only 128GB DDR4 …

G.Skill, one of the world’s leading suppliers of enthusiast-class memory modules, at Computex introduced its new Trident Z-series DDR4 memory solutions that will be aimed at high-performance systems. The new kits will address not only Intel X99 high-end desktop platform, but also enthusiast-class Intel Z170 platforms featuring “Skylake” processors. The …

Adata, one of the world’s largest independent makers of memory modules, and G.Skill, a leading producer of enthusiast-class memory solutions for overclockers, this week said that their commercially available DDR4 modules can hit 4.0GHz frequency without use of extreme cooling methods. Engineers from Adata used MSI’s X99 Xpower AC mainboard, …

JEDEC, a leading stanard setting organization, this week announced the first standards for support of “hybrid” memory modules that fit into DDR4 DRAM memory slots, but contain NAND flash memory. Such non-volatile dual in-line memory modules (NVDIMMs) will be used for ultra-high-performance storage devices as well as for ultra-secure DRAM …

Prices of dynamic random access memory have been declining rather rapidly this year because of weak demand for personal computers and tablets. According to a media report, DRAM prices are the lowest in about 26 months. DRAM sport prices dropped around 9 per cent in the second quarter of 2015, …

Intel Corp.’s upcoming code-named “Skylake-S” microprocessor will promote the new DDR4 memory standard considerably more aggressively than it was initially believed. Although integrated memory controller of “Skylake” supports different types of DRAM, the processors will not officially support DDR3, but will only be compatible with a low-power version of the …

The switch to X99 can be painful on the wallet but MSI is looking to help alleviate some of the burden by offering up motherboard and DDR4 RAM combos at Dabs UK. DDR4 memory has a number of advantages over DDR3, including lower power usage and higher overclocking abilities. With X99 motherboards, …

Corsair Memory on Thursday introduced three new 128GB quad-channel DDR4 memory kits aimed at ultra-high-performance desktops and workstations. The new memory solutions offer server-class capacities with rather high clock-rates, but their prices are beyond the reach of 99 per cent of PC enthusiasts. Corsair offers three 128GB quad-channel kits: two …

G.Skill, one of the leading makers of advanced memory modules, on Tuesday rolled-out its highest-performing DDR4 memory kit. The 16GB quad-channel set of memory modules can operate at whopping 3.66GHz and deliver incredible levels of performance in games and demanding applications. G.Skill’s Ripjaws 4 series DDR4 3666MHz memory kit consists of …

Kingston Memory has introduced the world’s fastest 128GB DDR4 quad-channel memory kit that is rated to run at 3.0GHz. The kit is designed for high-end workstations based on Intel Corp.’s Core i7-5960X central processing unit. The kit consists of eight 16GB HyperX Predator modules that can run at 3000MHz with …

EVGA Corp. has quietly started to sell its own-brand memory modules in the U.S. The modules are designed for enthusiast-class personal computers, but do not offer extreme performance like DIMMs from traditional suppliers of high-end memory. Since the new products are not available widely, it looks like the company is …

Samsung Electronics plans to invest additional $9.2 billion in capacity expansion of the world’s largest semiconductor fab, a media report claims. At present it is unclear how exactly Samsung plans to expand its fab, but the cost of the whole project – around $23.6 billion – already looks staggering. Samsung …

When it comes to high-end memory modules for enthusiasts, there is always a trade-off between their clock-rates and capacities. It is not easy to overclock DIMMs powered by multiple memory ICs [integrated circuits], which is why it is complicated to install a lot of fast memory. However, G.Skill on Thursday …

The multi-threaded performance of Haswell-E processors makes them ideal for home users with demanding workloads. Video editors, game streamers, and users running virtual machines are some of the audiences who may benefit from up to eight CPU cores running on the Haswell microarchitecture. Those demanding workloads can bring with them …

Samsung Electronics plans to concentrate on expansion of production capacities used to make its 3D V-NAND memory going forward. A media report claims that the South Korean conglomerate no longer plans to build new manufacturing facilities for production of traditional planar NAND flash. NAND flash was invented by Toshiba Corp. …

Samsung Electronics overwhelmed the world of semiconductors when it announced plans to build a chip production plant that will cost almost $15 billion last October. At the time it was unclear for what the giant plans to use its fab in Pyeongtaek, a city south of Seoul. According to a …

SanDisk is one of the leading producers of NAND flash-based devices, could be an excellent acquisition target for Seagate and Western Digital, according to a financial analyst. While at present the takeover of SanDisk is a hypothetical thing, HDD makers may be very interested in acquiring a company with NAND …

Micron Technology said this week that it had already begun trial production of dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chips using its 10nm-class fabrication process. The manufacturing technology is still under development, but trial production indicates that it is proceeding as planned. “1x nanometer DRAM development is also proceeding well and …