Toshiba, Kingston Ship Rambus Rimm Modules To Dell

Toshiba America Electronic Components (TAEC) and Kingston Technology announced the first shipment of Toshiba's Direct Rambus RIMM modules to Dell Computer. TAEC and Kingston Technology are partnering to design, manufacture, test and deliver Rambus RIMM modules to PC OEMs planning shipment of systems using the Direct Rambus memory architecture in 1999.

RIMM modules achieve a maximum bandwidth of 1.6 gigabytes-per-second, double that of today's PC100 DIMMs. Toshiba produced the Direct Rambus devices used on the RIMM modules at its Yokkaichi fab in Japan. The Direct Rambus DRAMs were shipped directly to Kingston's Asia-Pacific Manufacturing Center in Taiwan and to Kingston's Americas Manufacturing Center in California to complete the module manufacturing process. Kingston worked closely with its Printed Circuit Board (PCB) suppliers to re-engineer their PCB manufacturing processes and process controls to achieve high yields of Direct Rambus specification-compliant PCBs.

The Kingston-supplied RIMM module PCBs were evaluated by Rambus Inc. Rambus subjected the Kingston-provided PCBs to rigorous tests, including impedance measurements, to verify compliance and performance.

Kingston tested the Direct Rambus RIMM modules with its reference Hewlett- Packard HP83000 testers. The company tested the RIMM modules on an HP83000 F1300, which can test the RIMM modules at-speed or at 800MHz. The Kingston-built RIMM modules passed all HP83000 F1300 tests.