Ancora memoria Rambus per SiS

Il produttore taiwanese annuncia un nuovo chipset per processori Pentium 4 e memoria Rambus, modello R659: questa nuova soluzione permette di ottenere sino a 9,6 Gbytes al secondo di bandwidth grazie all'architettura Rambus di tipo Quad Channel. Ovviamente è fornito il supporto ufficiale alla frequenza di bus Quad Pumped di 800 Mhz.

Per ottenere una bandwidth così elevata SiS deve utilizzare memoria Rambus PC1200, standard che ha avuto nei mesi passati una diffusione pressoché nulla sul mercato. Inoltre, una bandwidth della memoria così elevata è al momento attuale abbastanza inutile, in quanto abbinata ad un bus di sistema che con processori a 800 Mhz di bus utilizza solo 6,4 Gbytes al secondo di banda.

L'architettura Advanced HyperStreaming Engine integrata nel nuovo chipset SiS659 permette, stando a quanto rilasciato dal produttore, di diminuire nettamente le latenze di accesso alla memoria, operando per certi versi in modo molto simile alla tecnologia PAT implementata nel chipset Intel i875P Canterwood.

SiS ha confermato che i primi sample del nuovo chipser R659 verranno resi disponibili a partire dal quarto trimestre dell'anno, ma non si hanno informazioni su prodotti che utilizzeranno questo chipset.

Di seguito è riportato un estratto dal comunicato stampa ufficiale di SiS:

October 7th, 2003; Taipei - Silicon Integrated Systems Corp. (SiS), a leading supplier of core logic products, today announced of the newest Advanced HyperStreaming™ Engine (AHSE) technology and its implementation in the ground-breaking SiSR659 series chipset.

Utilizing a high speed Rambus® memory interface and controller technology with support up to 16 GB of quad channel 1200 MHz RDRAM, the SiSR659 delivers an outstanding 9.6 GB/s of memory bandwidth - making it the fastest chipset on the market today. To support the high speed and capacity of Rambus® memory, SiS implemented the new Advanced HyperStreaming™ Engine architecture to give the SiSR659 full compatibility with 800MHz FSB CPUs. The SiSR659 brings overall system operations to an unsurpassed level of performance.

As the name implies, AHSE is an advanced version of the Hyperstreaming(tm) Engine. AHSE technology features 1. Low Latency with single stream, 2. Pipelining and Concurrent Execution with Multiple streams, 3. Prioritized Channel with Specific stream, 4. Smart flow control and Intelligent arbitration with Smart stream and 5. advanced stream accelerative technology, compared to Intel's PAT, provide a remarkable improvement in transfer speeds between the CPU, DRAM and the north-bridge chipset. While AHSE shares the same high-speed hardware read/write capabilities that are inherent to HSE™, it is also compatible with identical operating environments and supports the same graphic and audio capabilities. The outstanding memory bandwidth supported by AHSE makes a clearly noticeable improvement in overall system performance.

AHSE fuses these five technologies, and integrates hardware management and system resource allocation, including the CPU, front side bus, south-bridge chipset, memory controller, graphics interface, and peripheral I/O to push personal computing to the cutting edge of performance. By taking full advantage of the Intel platform and high speed Rambus® memory technology, the SiSR659's advanced architecture meets the needs of the most demanding high performance user.

Michael Chen , President and CEO of SiS, says, "With the introduction of the Advanced HyperStreaming™ Engine, the SiSR659 is set to become the chipset of choice for high performance PCs. SiS will continue to be a leader in the introduction of new technologies, and by keeping up a constant stream of innovative products, SiS is bound to become the premier choice in the eyes of consumers."

SiSR659 samples will be available in the fourth quarter.