Press Release

Samsung Electronics Goes into Mass Production of World's Fastest Memory for Multimedia Applications

XDR DRAM, based on Rambus's XDR memory interface technology, enables up to 12.8 GB/s of memory bandwidth

Los Altos, California, United States  and  Seoul, Korea  - 01/24/2005   Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., the world leader in advanced memory technology, today announced that it has begun mass producing 256Mb XDR™ (for "eXtreme Data Rate") DRAM, a next-generation memory device based on Rambus's XDR memory interface technology. The new memory targets multimedia applications that require the ability to process high-quality video, such as the latest game consoles, digital TVs, servers and workstations.

The Samsung 256Mb XDR DRAM incorporates Rambus's Octal Data Rate process that transfers data at eight bits per clock cycle, while cranking up the transfer speed to an industry-leading eight gigabytes per second. That speed is 10 times faster than DDR 400 memory. To transfer data in a stable manner at the extremely high speeds, Samsung is utilizing Differential Rambus Signal Level (DRSL) technology.

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

"Our XDR memory interface technology enables bandwidth levels that are unprecedented and will fill the need for high performance consumer, graphics and networking applications," said Rich Warmke, product marketing director for the Memory Interface Division at Rambus. "Samsung is at the forefront of providing the market with leading-edge memory devices and we're pleased to have them as an XDR partner."

Samsung plans to introduce a 512Mb XDR DRAM, capable of transferring data as fast as 12.8 gigabytes per second, during the first half of this year. With the introduction of yet another leading edge DRAM technology, the company adds to its leadership position in the high-performance DRAM market.

The market analysis firm, IDC, predicts that the XDR DRAM market will grow steadily, beginning in 2005, with global shipments exceeding 800 million 256Mbit-equivalent units by 2009.

Samsung Electronics has been the world's foremost producer of DRAMs for the past 13 years. The company produces a diverse memory portfolio that spans DDR2, graphics DRAM, mobile DRAM and, now, the next-generation, super-fast XDR DRAM.

About Samsung Electronics

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. is a global leader in semiconductor, telecommunication, digital media and digital convergence technologies with 2004 parent company sales of US$55.2 billion and net income of US$10.3 billion. Employing approximately 123,000 people in 93 offices in 48 countries, the company consists of five main business units: Digital Appliance Business, Digital Media Business, LCD Business, Semiconductor Business and Telecommunication Network Business. Recognized as one of the fastest growing brands, Samsung Electronics is the world's largest producer of color monitors, color TVs, memory chips and TFT-LCDs. For more information, please visit www.samsung.com.