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Micron launches low-power SDRAM
Dinna, dinna, dinna, dinna, dinna... BAT-RAM
Micron has announced a version of SDRAM technology aimed at mobile applications - even as fellow chip maker Infineon was doing exactly the same thing (see Infineon unveils PDA SDRAM).
Micron's answer to Infineon's Mobile-RAM is called BAT-RAM, but the aim is the same: to offer a memory part tailored for the cellphone and palmtop markets.
Of the two, BAT-RAM seems the inferior. It has begun sampling at 64Mb (8MB) in 2Mb x 32 configuration, and draws either 2.5V or 3.3V. The first MRAM chips come in at 128Mb (8Mb x 16) and run at 2.5V.
Infineon's mobile memory uses a couple of power-saving features, Micron's just one: temperature compensated self-refresh, which adjusts the chip's self-refresh rate and power consumption according to its temperature. MRAM does that too - it also switches off the self-refresh individual parts of the chip.
But why this sudden burst of mobile SDRAM technologies? Simple: JEDEC is working on the spec. for a low-power DRAM chip standard, so all the contenders are shouting loudly about their offerings in the hope that JEDEC will base its standard on their technology.
- Samsung has announced its low-power DRAM technology, too, dubbed UtRAM. ®
Biting the hand that feeds IT
