Samsung’s new chip twice as fast as rivals’

Samsung Electronics Co., the world’s largest semiconductors memory chipmaker, said yesterday that it started the mass production of one gigabyte double data rate 2, or DDR 2, chips for the first time in the world. The DDR2 can transfer data at a rate of 533 megabytes per second to 667 megabytes, two times faster than the current industry standard DDR 266 memory chips. “DDR2 is a viable technology and will play an important role in enabling the development of a new generation of feature-rich, high-speed gaming personal computers, servers and network computers,” said Tom Quinn, Samsung’s U.S. vice president of memory sales and marketing. Samsung’s DDR technology was adopted as international standards in 1998 by the Joint Electron Device Engineering Council, an international association of electric and electronic standardization. The association also approved Samsung’s DDR2 standards in March last year. Samsung developed 512 megabyte DDR 2 memory chips for the first time in the world in May last year and shipped engineering samples to major chipset developers. by Kim Hyo-jin