Kingmax and DDR2

Kingmax, famous for its high-quality and yet affordable memory modules, is becoming more and more popular in Hungary as well. Now we can learn a number of important things about their plans for this year’s DDR2.

Registered as the eighth largest module manufacturer in the world, the company hopes that by the end of the year, every second product they sell will be DDR2. To help expand, they also announced their mass-produced 667 MHz DDR2 memory last week, so high-speed but relatively inexpensive modules will soon be available in Hungary as well.

By the end of the year, they calculated that 533 MHz DDR2 modules could account for 20 percent of their total sales, while 667 MHz could account for an additional 30 percent. So it’s clear that they think DDR667s with a clock speed of 2 MHz are already really taking their place against traditional DDRs, so they could certainly spread much sooner than their previous siblings.

On the other hand, we will see the TinyBGA-encapsulated chips, which are well-known from the manufacturer, on the mentioned modules. We now also know that their encapsulation is done by Kingpak, a member of the Kingmax group, however, the chips shipped in the form of wafers are purchased from Elpida and Hynix.

According to factory data, the new 667 MHz Kingmax DDR2s will be available in 4, 4 and 12 MB modules with a 256-512-1024 delay. The manufacturer expects $ 300 million in revenue from its DRAM modules this year and plans to expand strongly in Europe and Brazil. The main targets of the 667 MHz instances will be Japan, the United States, Europe (along with Russia and other Eastern countries), China and Taiwan, so we are also among the top targets.

Kingmax also has very serious plans in the notebook market. They already ship 533 MHz SO-DIMMs for laptops, and in fact, some customers are already craving 667 MHz. Nearly 2 percent of Kingmax’s DDR30 modules have so far been in SO-DIMM format, a proportion that could rise to 50 percent by the end of this quarter.