Samsung claims fastest ever multimedia Ram

Samsung Electronics has today begun mass production of what it claims is the world's fastest Ram for multimedia applications.

The Samsung 256Mb XDR (eXtreme Data Rate) DRam features an Octal Data Rate process that transfers data at eight bits per clock cycle, while cranking up the transfer speed to 8Gbps.

This is 10 times faster than DDR 400 memory and five times faster than RDRam (PC800), the company claimed. To transfer data in a stable manner at the extremely high speeds, Samsung is using Differential Rambus Signal Level technology.

The firm said that its 256Mb XDR memory is designed for inclusion in graphics intensive devices such as game consoles, digital TVs, servers and workstations.

"XDR technology has tremendous potential to become a leading memory solution for today's highest performance multimedia applications, and we are quite enthusiastic about its prospects," said Mueez Deen, marketing director for graphics memory at Samsung Semiconductor.

The electronics giant added that it plans to introduce a 512Mb XDR DRam, capable of transferring data as fast as 12.8Gbps, during the first half of this year.

The announcement follows Samsung's development at the end of last year of a 512Mb GDDR3 synchronous DRam memory device for graphics card makers and games console manufacturers.