Elpida Memory, Inc., a leading global supplier of Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM), today announced that it reached an agreement with Germany-based Qimonda AG, which is now in insolvency proceedings, to acquire Qimonda technology licenses and a portion of the design assets related to Graphics Double Data Rate (GDDR), a memory architecture that has a high-speed data interface for graphic processing applications.

Based on the licenses and assets acquired from Qimonda, Elpida will now join the graphics DRAM business and become a memory solutions company with an expanded range of products and services.

Corsair, a worldwide leader in high-performance computer memory, power supplies, and flash memory products including solid-state drives, today re-introduced the popular Dominator GT line of memory modules. These modules had been removed from the market due to unacceptable failure levels of the Elpida "Hyper" components with which the modules are constructed.

"The issue with the Hyper RAMs was discovered with the help of the enthusiast community, and we worked closely with them to solve it," stated John Beekley, VP of Applications Engineering at Corsair. "Our lab was able to correlate the failures to specific batches of early material, we worked very closely with Elpida to determine the root cause of the issue and to define the associated corrective actions to take. We are confident that every GT module using the Elpida Hyper IC Corsair ships from today will meet our strict quality and reliability standard."

Following earlier reports of failing memory modules with Elpida Hyper chips, first Corsair and now OCZ Technology is stopping sales of Elpida Hyper DRAMs. Although OCZ claims it has not yet seen extended failures in its Elpida Hyper equipped memory modules, because an earlier batches were used, it is also pulling out the presumably affected memory modules and memory kits. This is OCZ's official statement:

In regards to the potential issues relating to Elpida Hyper IC's, OCZ has not yet seen extended failures in the field, and the Elipda Hyper IC's we have used came from earlier batches so we do not yet know if this is the reason why we are not seeing field issues but as a proactive measure based on the latest information from media reviewers like AnandTech we have officially held the use of any Elpida Hyper IC's at this time. Any customers that are seeing issues are encouraged to contact us and we will absolutely take care of all customers with a no questions asked refund or exchange for another OCZ product of equal value, whichever the customer prefers. We want to make sure that our customers have peace of mind and the confidence that we will take care of any and all issues related to modules that utilize Elpida Hyper chips.

I'm afraid I have to serve some bad news for owners of the expensive Corsair Dominator GT memories. Corsair today informed the community that they will temporarily stop selling top of the line Dominator GT DDR3 modules due to an issue with the Elpida chips used in them. The DDR3-2000 CAS 7 Elpida chips also called "Hyper" RAMs are likely to fail for an yet unknown reason. Corsair says the fail ratio is very small, but unacceptable to them so they are pulling all affected models from the market until the problem is solved. Corsair will continue to support owners of the already sold modules.

We have seen a number of reports across various forums about failures of modules (from Corsair as well as from other memory manufacturers) built with Elpida "Hyper" RAMs. Through lab testing, we have now been able to reproduce similar failures. We are continuing to test to determine the cause of these failures. Note that although a relatively small percentage of "Hyper" ICs appear to be affected, the rate of failure is not acceptable to Corsair or to our customers. Due to these failures, we will no longer sell Hyper-based modules until the issue can be resolved. We have also have asked our retailers to return any modules they currently have on their shelves. Products impacted include TW3X4G1600C6GTF, TR3X6G1866C7GTF, TR3X6G2000C8GTF, TR3X3G2000C7GTF, and TR3X6G2000C7GTF. We are working on enhancing our manufacturing and testing process to be able to offer these parts again as soon as possible. We continue to stand behind these modules 100% with our standard warranty, which can be found here.

DRAM major Elpida, like most other Japanese companies, is not seeing the best of days, in fact its worst. The world's third largest DRAM company holds great importance to the Japanese electronics industry. The state-backed Development Bank of Japan (DBJ) will acquire shares in the company, and the government has approved dispatching 30 billion Yen to the company as early as by next week. DBJ separately plans to offer 10 billion Yen, while another state-backed financial institution Japan Bank for International Cooperation, will provide 20~30 billion Yen in emergency loans.

Three of Japan's megabanks and others are expected to lend around 100 billion Yen to Elpida, said Nikkei daily, adding that a public-private fund that supports innovation will also consider providing tens of billions of Yen. In all, at least US 2.1 billion worth of aid is coming Elpida's way. More companies will follow suit and seek government aid.

Rambus Inc., one of the world's premier technology licensing companies specializing in high-speed memory architectures, today showcased a silicon demonstration of a complete XDR memory system running at data rates up to 7.2Gbps with superior power efficiency. This silicon demonstration consists of Elpida's recently-announced 1Gb XDR DRAM device and an XIO memory controller transmitting realistic data patterns. The XIO memory controller is up to 3.5 times more power efficient than a GDDR5 controller, and the total memory system can provide up to two times more bandwidth than GDDR5 at equivalent power. In addition, the XIO memory controller demonstrated bi-modal operation with support for both XDR DRAM as well as next-generation XDR2 DRAM.

"Future graphics and multi-core processors require significantly higher memory performance under extremely challenging power and thermal constraints," said Martin Scott, senior vice president of Research and Technology Development at Rambus. "This technology demonstration highlights the outstanding power efficiency of the XDR and XDR2 memory architectures at performance levels from 3.2 to 7.2Gbps with scalability to well over 10Gbps."

Elpida Memory (Elpida), Japan's leading global supplier of Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM), today announced that it has begun mass production of the industry's highest density 2-gigabit Mobile RAM using 50 nm process technology at its Hiroshima fab.
Mobile RAM is an ultra low-power memory that is ideal for use in mobile phones and other portable devices and requires extremely advanced technology for development and production. As a leading supplier of mobile DRAM, Elpida has managed to quickly establish a full-scale 50 nm Mobile RAM production system using ArF immersion lithography and copper interconnect technology.

Elpida Memory (Elpida), Japan's leading global supplier of Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM), today introduced the industry's first 1-Gigabit XDR DRAM based on a x32-bit configuration. The new XDR product features the industry's fastest ultra-high speed of 7.2GHz, which is faster than any GDDR5 memory chip, and provides a data transfer rate of 28.8 Gigabytes per second with a single device, making it an ideal choice for such high-bandwidth, high-performance full HD-capable applications as game consoles, digital televisions and Blu-ray disc recorders.

Elpida Memory today announced that it had completed development of a 50nm process 2-gigabit Mobile RAM product using 50nm process technology with 193nm (ArF) immersion lithography and copper interconnect. The ultra low-power features of Mobile RAM are ideal for use in mobile phones, portable multimedia devices, portable internet-related devices and other handheld device applications. In its development of Mobile RAM Elpida has focused on conserving electric current. Compared with 70nm products the new 50nm product uses less than half the data retention current and half the operating current. These enhanced features enable double the memory capacity without an increase in system power consumption.

Elpida Memory, Japan's leading global supplier of Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM), today announced that its Board of Directors has decided to acquire a portion of the shares its strategic partner Powerchip Semiconductor Corporation (PSC) owns in Rexchip Electronics Corporation (Rexchip), a Taiwan-based manufacturing joint venture created by PSC and Elpida. Details of the share acquisition appear below.

Elpida Memory, Japan's leading global supplier of Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM), today announced that it has completed development of a 50nm process DDR3 SDRAM. The new DRAM product features the lowest power consumption in the industry, 2.5Gbps ultra high speed and a 1.2V low voltage operation based on the industry's smallest chip size. The new 50nm process DDR3 SDRAM was developed using the industry's most advanced 193nm (ArF) immersion lithography technology and copper interconnect technology and has a chip size of less than 40mm2. Also, the new SDRAM is an eco-friendly DRAM. It operates on not only DDR3 standard 1.5V supply voltage but even lower voltages of 1.35V and 1.2V and contributes to the low-power operations of high-density memory systems such as servers and data centers.

Elpida Memory, Japan's leading global supplier of Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM), announced today that it has developed a shrunken version of its 1-gigabit DDR2 SDRAM that delivers 20% more chips from a single 300mm wafer. Volume production of the new shrunken chip is expected to begin before the end of 2008 and will be shared among Elpida's Hiroshima Plant, its Taiwan-based Rexchip joint venture and its manufacturing partner PSC.

Elpida and Buffalo Technologies have unearthed a memory standard never before heard, and thought by many, as the limits of current DDR3 technology, given the silicon fabrication process current DRAM chips are made with. The elusive PC3-19200 standard has been achieved. Elpida has tested stable, a prototype memory module that runs at 2400 MHz DDR (1200 MHz actual clock-rate). The modules use Elpida's 2.5 Gbps DRAM chips.

These speeds, however, come at the cost of latencies and voltages. The module was tested stable at 2400 MHz only at 11-11-11-34, and a voltage of 2.1 V, which is high, by DDR3 standards. However, the module locks a surprise when it comes to the same numbers: The module was tested stable at 2096 MHz, at amazingly low 1.5V, with much tighter timings of 9-10-9-24. The companies wish to put this to mass production soon.

Elpida Memory today announced that it had developed the world's first 2.5Gbps (bit per second) 1-gigabit DDR3 SDRAM. The new memory device has an optimized design based on a copper interconnect process and new circuit technology that not only enables faster speeds but also an ultra-low voltage operation of 1.2V while conforming to DDR3 specifications.

Japan's Elpida Memory and China's Suzhou Venture Group (SVG) today announced that they have agreed to establish a joint venture company by the end of 2008 to produce DRAM (Dynamic Random Access Memory) chips in Suzhou City of Jiangsu Province, China. The companies intend to build a 300mm wafer fabrication facility (fab) in Suzhou Industrial Park to meet growing DRAM demand in the Chinese market.

Elpida Memory, Japan's leading global supplier of Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM), announced today that it is ready to launch 16-gigabyte Fully Buffered DIMM (FB-DIMM), the world's largest capacity FB-DIMM. Based on its own unique integrated packaging technology (stacked FBGA or sFBGA) with 2-gigabit DDR2 SDRAM Elpida has achieved development of FB-DIMM products that feature an ultra thin thickness of 7.7mm along with the world's largest capacity of 16 gigabytes.

Elpida Memory, Japan's leading global supplier of Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM), announced today that it has developed a top-tier power efficient 1 Gigabit DDR3 SDRAM, which is capable of operating at an ultra-fast speed of 2 Gigabits per second (Gbps). By reducing power consumption to around the lowest possible level the new high-performance environmentally friendly DRAM marks an important milestone in Elpida's aggressive development of eco-products.

Elpida Memory, Japan's leading global supplier of Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM), today announced the availability of the industry's first 512-megabit DDR2 SDRAM with x32-bit I/O configuration. Elpida will begin sampling of this product by the end of this month.

Qimonda AG and Elpida Memory, both leading global memory suppliers, today announced that they have signed a Memorandum of Understanding for a technology partnership on joint development of memory chips (DRAMs). In the planned cooperation, Qimonda will provide its know-how with the innovative Buried Wordline technology and Elpida its advanced stack capacitor technology. The strategic technology cooperation will leverage the strength of both companies to accelerate their roadmap to DRAM products featuring cell sizes of 4F². The companies plan to introduce the jointly developed innovative 4F² cell concept in the 40nm generation in calendar year 2010 and to subsequently scale it to the 30nm generation.

Elpida Memory, Inc. (Elpida), Japan's leading global supplier of Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM), has completed development of a 1-Gigabit DDR2 SDRAM based on new 65nm process technology. The 65nm process allows Elpida to create the world's smallest chip products.

Elpida Memory, Japan's leading global supplier of Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM), announced today that it has completed development of the world's first 512-megabit DDR2 Mobile RAM operating at an ultra-low voltage of 1.2V. The new product achieves 533Mbps high-speed with the same power consumption of DDR Mobile RAM.

Elpida Memory, Inc., Japan's leading global supplier of Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM) and Rambus Inc., one of the world's premier technology licensing companies specializing in high-speed chip architectures, today introduced the industry's fastest DRAM, the 512 Megabit (Mb), 4.8GHz XDR DRAM, based on Rambus' XDR memory architecture. This latest addition to the XDR DRAM family provides an industry-leading data transfer rate of 9.6 Gigabytes per second (GB/s) with a single device, making it an ideal choice for high-performance, high-volume applications such as high-definition televisions (HDTV), gaming consoles, PCs, servers and workstations.

Elpida Memory, Inc. (Elpida), Japan's leading global supplier of Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM), announced today that it has achieved the world's first ultra-fast 2-Gigabit DDR2 SDRAM featuring a speed of 1066Mbps. The new high-performance DRAM is 30% faster than existing high-speed DDR2-800 memory and consumes 20% less power (IDD4) compared with Elpida's existing 2-Gigabit DDR2 SDRAMs.

Two of the world's biggest memory makers - Samsung and Elpida have been validated today on Intel Corporation's reference platform to work with Intel's next generation DDR3 chipsets. This is the largest number of DDR3-based solutions to have passed the validation program. Samsung's Intel-validated solutions include 13 modules and eight monolithic devices in combinations of 512MB/1GB densities with speeds of 800 or 1066MHz. In addition, Japanese Elpida Memory, Inc. has also received Intel's validation of its DDR3 main memory based on the G33 chipset reference platform. As a leading vendor of DDR3, Elpida has a diverse line-up of DDR3 products that include 512MB and 1GB DDR3 modules rated to run 800MHz at CL5-5-5 and 1066MHz at CL7-7-7 timings. DDR3 memory will provide at least twice the bandwidth of today's primary memory - DDR2 - with data transfer rates now up to 1.6Gb/s and default operating voltages down to 1.5V. Samsung and Elpida plan to begin full-scale mass production of its DDR3 chips later this quarter.