TAIPEI, Taiwan -- Kingston Technology Co. will build DDR module RIMMs with Nanya Technologies Inc.'s SDRAM, suggesting the market adoption of the memory technology is widening.
Kingston, the world's biggest module manufacturer, will ship the PC 1600 and PC 2100 DIMM modules for Nanya through Kingston's channels across the U.S., Europe and other markets of the world, said Nanya, which is said to suppy one-tenth of the double data rate chips worldwide.
The move of the Fountain Valley, Calif.-based module maker is a sudden twist from an announcement last month that it will spend US$15 million to raise the capacity of the competing Rambus RDRAM RIMM modules.
"The pact with Kingston is significant since it demonstrates the DDR platform will become the leading technology of the market," said a spokesperson for Taiwan's Nanya.
The partnership is part of the effort being made by a DDR group led by Via Technologies Inc., which has coordinated DRAM and motherboard companies to compete with the RDRAM supported by Intel Corp. for its Pentium 4 processors.
The group's latest achievement: More than 20 motherboard vendors, such as Asustek Computer Inc., Gigabyte Technologies Inc., Micro Star International Inc., Iwill Corp. and Aopen Inc., will display their DDR motherboards at the CeBIT show in Hannover, Germany later this week, according to a Via statement released today.
Products on display will include motherboards featuring Via's Apollo KT266 for the AMD Athlon processor as well as single and dual processor Socket 370 solutions based on the Via Apollo Pro266.
"All the necessary elements for the establishment of DDR as the next mainstream memory standard will finally converge at CeBIT 2001," the statement said. "DDR memory is rapidly gaining market momentum."
Still, it remains to be seen how much interest the vendors and Taipei-based Via will receive during the show, some analysts said.
Taoyuan-based Nanya is the first DRAM maker on the island shipping 128 MB DDR SDRAM in volume. This month, the company is expecting to deliver one million units, surging to 3 million in April and 6 million in June, said Charles Kau, a company executive vice president. Its output in February was 120,000 units.
Ultimately, Nanya hopes to own 30% of the market, he said.
Nanya has joined a discount program that bundles SDRAM modules with Via's DDR chipset for US$99 per set, 35% less than the market price currently. Motherboard makers receive the sets at an additional 10%, or $90 per set, if they buy a certain quantity.
The discount offering is slated to end on March 31, said the spokesperson of Nanya, adding that an estimated 800,000 SDRAM will be sold to Via during this month.
