Computex 2005 has started. Busy as always, crowded as always, and as always full of expectations. This year, Computex is celebrating its 25th anniversary. I believe that the opening ceremony was very colorful and festive. The moment I realized it is the anniversary date, I was sorry I missed it. Anyway, the show started, so, welcome to the latest and greatest news from Computex Tapei 2005.
DDR2 Memory Taking Off?
DDR2 SDRAM has been out there in the market for quite a while now. However, as we have seen it hasn't really taken off yet. The volume for DDR2 DIMM modules is not there yet, although some memory manufacturers have already noticed the positive change in this segment. OCZ Technologies, claims that they experience a pretty noticeable growth in the sales volumes for DDR2 memory modules. If they used to sell no modules at all I the past quarter, then these months, the DDR2 sales are approaching 5-7% of their overall sales volume, which is quite an achievement I should say. Ryan Petersen from OCZ sounded very excited about the growing DDR2 memory module sales anticipating that by the end of the year, this memory type will really take off.
Kingston, doesn't rush with rolling out huge volumes of DDR2 memory modules into the market. They claim that they do not see enough demand for DDR2 in the market yet to concentrate their effort on this memory type. Right now DDR400 is still of the biggest interest to Kingston customers, that is why the company continues focusing on shipping DDR400 SDRAM. Besides, Kingston calls themselves ?a conservative company?as far as adoption of new technologies is concerned. While all other competitors are moving their new products to the market quite rapidly, Kingston takes its time to do all the testing of the product they are planning to supply. Absolute quality guarantees have always been the top priority issue for the company, so no wonder Kinston is still working on some testing of the new DDR2 modules.
Besides the extensive testing of the memory modules, Kingston also pays special attention to the selection of components for their products. The company uses only brand name memory chips from such big names as Elpida, Samsung, Infineon, and for the Asian market they also use Hynix memory chips. All the products ?mobile, desktop or server ?have life-time warranty and feature specific marking distinguishing Kingston's generic memory (KVR letters in the beginning of the product marking) from the products customized for Kingston's partners (these modules have their own unique part numbers).
