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DAILY NEWS AND INFORMATION FOR THE GLOBAL GRID COMMUNITY / SEPTEMBER 8, 2003: VOL. 2 NO. 36

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Breaking News - Storage:

Renesas Technology Unveils 18- And 36-Megabit QDRII SRAMs

Renesas Technology America Inc, a U.S. subsidiary of the joint venture company of Hitachi Ltd and Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, announced a new family of high-speed 18- and 36-Mbit Quad Data Rate-II (QDRII) SRAM devices for high-performance network and communication system equipment such as top-end routers and switches.

The Renesas QDRII SRAMs are built on a leading-edge 0.13-micron CMOS process and achieve the industry's fastest speeds: 250MHz for 2-word burst devices and 333MHz for 4-word burst types in both capacities. When used as buffer memory, these fast SRAMs provide very high bandwidths, as high as 1.33 Gigabytes per second. This performance allows the design of communication and network equipment that can successfully manage very high volumes of traffic.

Meeting The Need For Greater Bandwidth

"In today's networking environment, transmission speeds of communication equipment are quickly exceeding 10Gbits per second," said Mark D'Arcangelo, product marketing manager of SRAM products at Renesas. "Renesas' new QDRII SRAMs enable our customers to market products that handle the OC-192 data rates needed today, while also helping them migrate to designs for the 40Gbit per second rates that OC-768 links can deliver."

The Renesas QDRII SRAMs, members of the HM66AQB family, offer highly desirable features not available in conventional synchronous SRAMs. The QDRII memory devices provide two data ports that operate independently at Double Data Rate (DDR), so they can output four data words per clock cycle. Their data-valid window is wide -- 65 percent of the clock cycle -- to minimize timing problems even during full-speed operation. Also, their echo-clock signals help simplify data capture by ensuring a precise and stable relationship to data-valid timing. System engineers can take advantage of these additional features, among others, to maximize the bandwidth of data-intensive networking and communication designs.

Compliant To The QDRII Standard

The new devices are fully compliant with the second-generation, QDRII/DDRII SRAM electrical and mechanical specifications defined by the members of the QDR Consortium, which is online at http://www.qdrsram.com . The QDR interface has been adopted by the Network Processing Forum as one of the key elements in Phase I of the Look-Aside Interface (LA-1). The LA-1 Interface is a critical specification that is designed to offload certain tasks from the Network Processing Unit of telecommunication equipment.

The Renesas QDRII family devices comprise of x8, x9, x18 and x36 organizations; 2-and 4-word burst capabilities and various speed ratings. All operate from a 1.8V power source (VDD), use HSTL I/Os, and have the requisite QDRII package and pinout: a 165-pin, 15mm x 17mm fine-pitch ball grid array (FBGA). Device datasheets are available at our Web site at www.renesas.com/eng/p roducts/memory.

To expand this product line, Renesas is currently developing 18- and 36-Mbit DDRII SRAMs. Sample shipments of the 18-Mbit DDRII devices are scheduled for the second quarter of 2004 and 36-Mbit devices in January.

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