– Occupies advantageous position in burgioning RDram market by supplying samples to companies including Intel, IBM, and Compac
– Invests U$170 millions in rambus Drams field in the first half of the year ’99
HEI(President : Kim Young Hwan) expects its sales turnover for rambus Drams, which is expected to be the main memory chips for next generation to reach U$400 millions this year, and plans to rise as the world’s biggest rambus Dram makers. HEI has recently produced the world’s smallest 72M direct rambus Dram customer samples and modules(boards with several Drams installed) on its own , and supplied the samples to leading chip makers including Intel, IBM, Compac, Del, and Gateway. HEI’s 72M rambus Drams can be produced in mass by applying technology with 0.22 micron circuit width, which is already being used in producing 64M SDRams, and 128M SDRams. Also with its chip size being the world’s smallest, which is 20% smaller than the the existing models, it is considerd to be excellent in price competition by increasing the number of chips that can be produced per wafer by 23%. HEI will start its mass producing of rambus Drams from second quarter of this year, when the market for rambus Dram chips is expected to be active, to reach 400 million units of 72M Rambus direct Drams per month till the second half of this year, followed by 1 million units of 144M Rambus Drams in the third quarter of this yeart to reach U$400 millions in sales turnover by the year ’99. In the last quarter of this year, it plans to start producing 256M Rambus Dram samples. To reach this goal, HEI will invest about U$170 millions to building perfect mass-producing system, and will increase its investment when the market volume for rambus Drams expands. As the market for direct rambus Drams, the main memory chip device for PC this year, is expected to be short in supply in large scale from early this year, the price is expected to maintain the level of 40% higher than the existing synchronous Dram prices, and as a result, HEI expects to make considerable profits by occupying the early market share. Rambus Drams, which have 6 times faster data processing speed than synchronous Drams(PC-100), the present main products in Dram market, will start taking its market share from the second quarter of this year when Intel completes its development of chip-setting, and expects to occupy more than 50% of the total Dram market. Rambus dram market is expected to reach U$2.6 billions and U$10 billions by the year 2000. HEI’s newly produced 72M direct rambus Drams can be applied to be installed in the super-speed computers by satisfying the Intel’s stantard 100%, and have maximum data-processing unit of 1.8GB per second, which is 10% faster than the basic standard rate for existing direct rambus Drams, 1.6GB/sec(13,000 sheets of newpapers). Also newly produced rambus Drams can be used with low-voltages and low electricity of 2.5V and 2V, and apply micro BGA(ball grid array) packages, the state-of-the-art semiconductor assemblying technology that can decrease the product size, so they can be applied to systems with low-electricity needs, such as desk-top PC, workstations and notebook PCs.
