This morning we discussed the possibility of early introduction of “beyond DDR-II” memory and its utilisation in the graphics cards (see this news-story), by now I have received a press-release from ATI Technologies, announcing the new memory standard called GDDR-3.

All the technical details that were said corresponded with those published earlier, so, there is no need to write them again. The main idea of GDDR-3 is to enable memory frequencies of up to 1600 MHz without making very complex DRAM chips and interfaces.

Besides ATI Technologies, GDDR-III is supported by NVIDIA and leading memory manufacturers, including Micron, Hynix and Infineon. With the completion of the specification late in the summer of 2002, DRAM vendors and users of high speed DRAMs can focus on the next step in the process of delivering products to market. GDDR-3 will become available in 2003 and should continue to be an important inflection in graphics for years to come.