Zardon

Memory specialist Rambus have announced a brand new technology which apparently cuts the power usage of ram in portable devices by around 33%.

The new memory technology which was developed as part of the companies Mobile Memory Initiative was tested in a prototype by Rambus and proved to save huge amounts of power when compared to traditional RAM.

Rambus reported that a standard DDR2 400 memory controller uses around 10mW/Gbps which is ten milliwatts for every gigabit per second of memory bandwidth. This latest test prototype achieves the same performance in just 2.2mW/Gbps - by utilising advanced power state management and very low swing differential signalling as well as the companies FlexClocking technology.

While the memory savings seem so small to hardly be worthwhile, it is worth remembering that even these tiny amounts of saved power will help batteries in smartphones, netbooks and portable media devices run for significantly longer.

Allan Campbell: Heaven Media

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