The kind of DRAM technology has yet to be determined, but technology leaders from each company will form an ad hoc committee that will meet over the next few months to decide. It's also uncertain what DRAM generation the partners will target, though it has been rumored to be gigabit memories.

The companies will "work together and with industry participants to develop the architecture, electrical and physical design, and related infrastructure for this advanced DRAM technology," according to a press release detailing the agreement.

Citing the need to ensure that DRAM performance will match microprocessors of the future, the companies pledged to promote the technology's adoption by providing application and design information for makers of chipsets, platforms and components. Those interested will be able to access the design information for review and provide feedback after entering a participant's agreement.

DRAMs over dinner
Representatives of the six companies, which are among the top suppliers of DRAM, plan to meet Tuesday (Jan. 18) in Seoul over dinner to discuss their options. Hyundai is sponsoring the dinner, a Hyundai spokesman said. Formal meetings by the group will begin next month.

"It will be finalized after frequent meetings," said the Hyundai spokesman. "The council is a temporary development group that will decide on which architecture is right."

Among the options that have been publicly bandied about is double-data rate DRAMs. Another possibility that has been floated in the past is devising protocol-based interface that can be bolted onto a DRAM to speed transactions, as Rambus has done. The companies will also likely hear out new schemes for a faster DRAM core as well, such as the Virtual Channel Memory from NEC, or possibly a similar architecture developed by Enhanced Memory Systems Inc.

"VCM can be integrated with any interface and that's something we'd like to get looked at," an NEC spokesman said. "But we're not pinning any colors to any mask. Everyone's coming there with an open mind."

Conspicuously absent from the group is Rambus, which last month announced its intention to double the speed of its fastest interface from 800-MHz to 1.6-Ghz for DRAMs that will be available later this year. "They are not a silicon company, they are a design company," the Hyundai spokesman said. "At this time it is limited to silicon developers."

The move appears to be a major shift in strategy from Intel, whose endorsement of Rambus' technology elevated Rambus from a struggling design house to a position of prominence and a successful example of the "chipless" chip company. With few exceptions, and despite complaints from memory vendors who grudgingly licensed the technology, Intel has doggedly backed Rambus since then.

But that strategy often sputtered. The architecture was endorsed by a legion of high-profile PC suppliers and was incorporated into Sony's the Playstation II, which will be launched this spring in Japan. But high manufacturing costs and introduction delays have posed a barrier to mainstream PCs that remains to this day, causing Intel to lose some ground to rivals in chipset leadership.