SPMT Working Group to Set a New Memory Interface Standard

Apr 30, 2008 18:58 Nikkei Electronics Asia

ARM, Hynix Semiconductor Inc, LG Electronics, Samsung Electronics, Silicon Image Inc, Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB, and STMicroelectronics have formed a working group aimed at creating an open standard for next-generation memory interface technology targeting mobile devices.

Named Serial Port Memory Technology (SPMT), this is said to be the first-of-its-kind memory standard for dynamic random access memory (DRAM). This technology is claimed to extend battery life, bandwidth flexibility, significantly reduce pin count, lower power demand and multiple ports by using a serial interface instead of the parallel interface commonly used in today's memory devices.

This technology is expected to be suitable for both mobile handset manufacturers and consumers because it will dramatically extend battery life while allowing high-performance media-rich applications that will be the norm on next-generation mobile phones.

The goal of the SPMT Working Group is to define a technology that reduces pin count by a minimum of 40%, provides a bandwidth range from 3.2GBps to 12.6GBps and higher, reduces input/output power by 50% or more to extend battery life, and provides the ability to use either a single port or multiple ports into a single SPMT-enabled memory chip.

While initially targeted at the mobile handset market, the technology will also be in demand by other markets such as portable media players, digital still cameras and handheld gaming devices.

The working group has been meeting since the third quarter of 2007 and is expected to organize a formal consortium later this year consisting of handset, memory and SoC manufacturers and semiconductor IP providers with the intention of bringing the SPMT specification to the industry by the end of 2008.

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