That prediction is to be expected from the conference, sponsored by Via Technologies Inc., a leading proponent of the DDR memory standard. The one-day event attracted more than 40 motherboard, module and memory makers, as well as Advanced Micro Devices Inc. And while Rambus DRAM was initially a de facto taboo topic, it was evident that industry leaders were once again validating the shift toward DDR as the most viable main memory standard in the cutthroat DRAM market.

"We are strong believers that history keeps on repeating itself," said Peter Eckelmann, director of product marketing for Infineon Technologies. "And we have always seen the next architecture of main memory being successful [in graphics] first. The DRAM standard [today] for high-performance graphics is DDR and will remain so for quite awhile, so it is quite clear that DDR is the next standard for main memory and I don't think anyone can say anything to the contrary. It's just a matter of when it's going to happen and how."

Despite different memory architectures competing for market share this year against the backdrop of a general slowdown, major DRAM suppliers Micron, Samsung and Hyundai have indicated that this is the year volume production of DDR DRAMs will take off. Bringing DDR DRAM pricing in line with SDRAM — expected to happen by the second half — was the main obstacle to sparking volume production, memory makers said. The new generation of DRAMs "have never been accepted until they were sold at the same price as the previous generation," said Jeff Mailloux, director for DRAM marketing at Micron Technology Inc. "So while volume does drive cost, pricing drives volume. And Micron is looking to accelerate DDR adoption by making sure it's at parity as quickly as possible."

Pricing parity was also considered a crucial factor to driving DDR DRAM into the lower-end, value-PC market. There was general consensus among suppliers that OEMs would start to ship DDR technology in their value PCs by the third quarter, boosting demand among consumers lured by greater performance at discount prices. "You could take a PC today that might have 64 megabytes of SDRAM, a separate graphics controller and an 8-megabyte frame buffer and redesign that to use just 128 megabytes of DDR with integrated graphics on the chip set, and it's probably lower cost and higher performance," said Mailloux. "That's going to be a very attractive box to a lot of people."

Some companies, such as Mosel Vitelic, contend that, all things being equal, their fundamental manufacturing cost is already lower for DDR DRAM due to their smaller die sizes. "But we are making millions and millions of SDRAM parts and so are our competitors," said Jon Kang, senior vice president for product planning at Samsung Electronics. "So until demand drives volume, then you won't see parity with SDRAM. When we have higher volume, then DDR could cost less than a synchronous."

At present, Kang said Samsung is ready to ramp up quickly for DDR, which uses a manufacturing process similar to the one for SDRAM. Yet Samsung is far from abandoning its top position as a supplier of Rambus DRAM. The improved performance achieved by systems using Intel's Pentium 4 processor and dual-channel Rambus DRAMs, and the fact that an Intel DDR-enabled chip set will not be available until at least the fourth quarter has raised speculation that Rambus demand may be better than expected this year.

"The ramp up into the PC market with the Pentium 4 is going to be — according to [Intel] — the fastest and the steepest in their history," Kang said. "So for the time being, as the only memory solution for Pentium 4, Rambus will ramp very quickly this year." Samsung, which said it owned 50 percent of last year's market for Rambus DRAM, recently developed an "affordable" version of the proprietary memory architecture. That chip uses a four-bank configuration similar to that of an SDRAM, and is manufactured with a 0.17-micron process that slices at least 20 percent of production costs, the company said.

Nevertheless, Kang noted that once Intel and third-party chip set vendors provide DDR chip sets, Rambus will be undermined in the mainstream, high-volume segment of the PC market, because the DDR cost structure will be lower. "Samsung should enjoy the Rambus business this year because it is probably the only year that they will enjoy it," said Farhad Tabrizi, vice president of worldwide marketing at Hyundai. "Once you ramp up very fast, you'll have to ramp down very fast," he said.