Canadian memory outfit Concord Idea gave us a sneak peak at their new FB-DIMM modules at Computex. Designed for use in mission critical servers and performance workstations, Concerned tells us that their new SyncMAX modules can provide a high-speed data transfer rate with 533, 667 or 800 Mb/s DDR2 components, with a throughput peak of a whopping 6.4 GB/s.
The Advanced Memory Buffered (AMB) chip on FB-DIMM modules is the key to the performance enhancements we are being promised. The chip acts as a repeater between the memory controller and the next module in the channel enabling a high-speed serial point-to-point communication. The bi-directional serial interface sends and receives data simultaneously, eliminating read-to-write latencies compared to conventional memory.
Reliability is enhanced with reduced pin count design (69 versus 240 for conventional memory) and the AMB chip's built-in error checking and correction function. Finally, capacity barriers are broken with the availability of 6 channels with 8 DIMMs each, for a total capacity of 192 GB per memory controller.
The SyncMAX Fully-Buffered DIMM will be available in the 2nd half of 2006 if all goes to plan, with a target list price of $99/$184 for the 512M/1G-533 MHz and $119/$239 512M/1G-667 MHz.
