Micron Technology, a US-based memory firm, released some of its future intentions in DDR-II and GDDR3 fields at a conference in Barcelona, Spain. According to this report, the company is not extremely aggressive in terms of performance, but still demonstrates a solid product roadmap for the coming years.

GDDR3 256Mb memory chips at 500MHz (1000Mb/s) for performance-mainstream graphics cards will be produced in viable quantities starting from the second quarter next year, while the 700MHz (1400Mb/s) 256Mb memory will be available from Micron in mass quantities starting from the third quarter 2004.

DDR-II SDRAM at 667MHz will ship in the late Q2 next year, while the 400MHz and 533MHz 256Mb DRAMs are ready to go virtually instantly. It is interesting to note that Boise, Idaho-based memory maker plans to start producing 512Mb memory chips only in the Q3 2004, but to utilize 95nm technology for them, while 1Gb chips are expected to emerge only in 2005 and will also be made using mature 0.11 micron fabrication process.

Rivals of Micron, namely Samsung, Hynix, Elpida and Infineon will indeed concentrate on producing 512Mb and 1Gb memory chips early next year and have not disclosed plans to supply 256Mb devices into the market so far. Sounds like Micron thinks there will be demand for dual-channel 512MB configurations in late Q2 when Intel rolls-out its Grantsdale platform.

Furthermore, some competitors of Micron Technology, such as Samsung Electronics, already supply leading graphics processor makers, such as NVIDIA Corporation from Santa Clara, California, with 1600MHz GDDR3 memory chips. Moreover, Samsung provided its 1000MHz GDDR2 DRAMs for the GeForce FX 5800 Ultra early this year. On this background, Micron’s intention to start production of GDDR3 chips at 1000MHz in Q2 2004 is not that impressive, to tell you the truth.

To sum up, it seems that Micron Technology will mostly concentrate on next-generation memory products for mainstream and even cost-effective applications, but will not run ahead of the industry with ultra-high performance DRAMs.