I built my first crystal radio at about the age of ten (had help with the soldering iron) and have been dabbling in the analog electronics field ever since. The "James Brown of Analog": I do like James Brown and have I been working in the electronics industry for many years. I’m also a big fan of Reggae and Ska and spent my youth listening to John Peel on Radio 1. Ken Boothe is the greatest singer. Running is a passion. Squaw Valley is the best place to ski. Ever! Going to the mattresses over the future of mobile DRAM
Posted by Navraj Nandra on November 12th, 2009
CLEMENZA: “That Sonny’s runnin’ wild. He’s thinkin’a going to the mattresses already. We gotta find a spot over on the West Side”.
With LPDDR2 SDRAM beginning to garner design wins in mobile electronics, the next generation mobile DRAM is currently being debated. There are two camps: parallel and serial interfaces.
In order to support the higher speeds the technology proposed by the parallel camp is to use “TSV” or through silicon vias. Within the serial camp, there are two sub-groups: the “SPMT” and the “UFS MIPI M-PHY”. With the power and speed requirements the parallel interface, like most of the high speed interconnects, will go to a serial technology. Recognizing this, the debate is being focused on exactly which serial standard should be implemented.
While both have technical merits and some disadvantages the key difference is whether one of the standards is effectively a propriety technology – and potentially users of this version will have to pay a technology license or access fee. From a standards perspective this is just a bad idea (unless you are guy getting the license fee).
So the “serial war” is being played out and two camps will be on the mattresses for a while.
RSS
License fees for a standard can be a real impediment. I like RAND terms (Reasonable And Non-Discriminatory)such as the IEEE and Accellera require – especially when “Reasonable” equals “Free”!