Viking heeft aangekondigd dat ze zijn begonnen met de levering van 128 en 256MB DDR DIMM engineering samples. De modules zijn beschikbaar in de smaken registered en unbuffered. Helaas gaat 't nog steeds om samples, dus het kan nog even duren voordat we de spullen daadwerkelijk bij de hardwareboer zien liggen. Viking wil nog niet zeggen wat de uiteindelijke prijs van de productie reepjes wordt. Het feit dat de productiekosten van DDR chips slechts 5% hoger zijn dan de productie kosten van SDR chips en het feit dat Viking bestaande PCB materialen en assamblage lijnen kan blijven gebruiken, voorspelt in ieder geval geen heftige prijs penalty:
Viking Components, one of the world's largest and fastest growing manufacturers of OEM and upgrade component technology, is now shipping engineering samples of its next-generation 184-pin unbuffered and registered Double Data Rate (DDR) SDRAM modules supporting the AMD-760(TM) chipset. Viking DDR samples are now available in 128 MB and 256 MB capacities.[...] And DDR memory is manufactured at cost levels that are in line with today's mainstream PC memory costs making it possible to realize improved system performance at comparable costs to current SDRAM solutions.
``Viking is committed to supporting DDR and other next-generation memory to guarantee fulfillment of our customer's high-speed computing requirements,'' said Shannon Biggs, Viking executive vice-president of engineering and manufacturing.
``Due to DDR's evolutionary nature, Viking can use existing PCB materials as well as our existing assembly and state-of-the-art test equipment to ensure optimum reliability and performance of each Viking module.''
``AMD and partners, like Viking Components, have pursued the adoption of DDR memory technology because of the benefits it brings to our customers. These benefits include increased performance gains compared to current SDRAM technology and a cost competitive structure,'' said Ned Finkle, director of AMD's Infrastructure Enablement Group.
``We are pleased Viking is committed to being among the first to bring DDR memory modules to market and to help meet the anticipated demand for this next-generation technology.''