Maxtronic's ExaSAN solution is built upon an architecture to provide maximum flexibility and speed. It features higher performance through utilizing the PCI Express (PCIe) x4/ x8 bus and lowers cost over traditional fiber SANs targeting the video market, the company claimed. The ExaSAN family includes RAID storage devices, ExaSAN host /device SAN switches, PCIe HBAs, cabling and accessories. Without components from third-party providers, Maxtronic is able to design, verify and produce every component in the ExaSAN.Maxtronic ExaSAN solutions use a native PCI Express protocol to avoid protocol codec/decode translations and reduce any unnecessary overhead, the company claimed. In addition, the data and commands are exchanged in a more efficiency way by directing memory access or DMA between the system memory and buffer memory on the controller, according to the company.ExaSAN technology supports multiple host connections, multiple storage connections and high scalability. It's fully compatible with Mac Pro, Mac OS X Server, Windows and PC servers. The Maxtronic ExaSAN not only works seamlessly with Apple Xsan 2 but also improves performance and reliability of the application, Maxtronic claimed. The high-performance ExaSAN can support multiple uncompressed high-definition video streams with no frame drops, and provide large and scalable capacity demands for high definition video in the media broadcasting or movie industries with multi-user support.

Elpida Memory on August 6 announced that it has reached an agreement with Qimonda, which is now in insolvency proceedings, to acquire the Germany-based chipmaker's technology licenses and a portion of the design assets related to graphics DDR (GDDR) chips.Elpida also disclosed it is scheduled to volume ship 1Gb GDDR3 and 1Gb GDDR5 in the first half of 2010. The new graphics DRAM chips will be outsourced to Winbond Electronics, said the Japan-based memory maker, adding that the mass production of 2Gb GDDR5 is expected to take place at its Hiroshima Plant starting in the second half of the year.Elpida's GDDR technology development will be mainly operated at its recently-built Munich Design Center, where nearly 50 engineers and other former Qimonda employees involved in the development work will take up new posts.Elpida said it is looking to quickly ramp up a full-fledged GDDR business, while acknowledging the increased demand for applications such as game consoles."Graphics systems now need graphics buffer memory with a data transfer rate of more than 5Gb/sec given the rapidly growing popularity of high-definition format graphics data, 3D graphics and various display formats," said Elpida CTO Takao Adachi. "In response to this need we will shortly begin commercial production of GDDR5, for which an even faster data transfer rate of 8Gb/sec may be feasible in the near future.

Micro-Star International (MSI) has recently launched AMD 785G chipset-based motherboards. The MSI 785G series motherboards feature MSI's Active Phase Switching (APS) technology to allow automatic power-usage adjustment based on system loading, the company highlighted.The motherboards are also equipped with Easy OC Switch, which allows users to achieve higher performance from processor with a click of the button, MSI said.The MSI 785G motherboards are integrated with AMD's ATI Radeon HD 4200 GPU, and provide an HDMI port for audio and video output. MSI 785G-E65 motherboard: Specifications Item Detail Socket AM3 CPU support Up to AMD Phenom II series processors HyperTransport bus Up to 5.2GT/s Chipset AMD 785G+SB710 Memory DDR3 800/1066/1333/1600 Memory channel Dual DIMM slots 4 Max memory 16GB IGP ATI Radeon HD 4200 Sources: Company, compiled by Digitimes, August 2009MSI 785G-E65 motherboardPhoto: Company

Average global pricing for commodity electronic components is expected to rise by 2.3% sequentially in the third quarter of 2009, thanks to shortages and resulting price hikes for memory chips, according to iSuppli. With DRAM accounting for 9.1% of global semiconductor revenues in 2008, the price increase in this area is having an inordinate impact on overall component costs."Overall component pricing is being heavily impacted by price hikes for DRAM, spurred by a shortage of DDR3 parts," said Eric Pratt, vice president, pricing and competitive analysis, at iSuppli. "Overall DRAM pricing is expected to rise by 10.2% in the third quarter." Other areas seeing price increases include analog ICs, discretes and filters.Following declines of 8.4% in fourth-quarter 2008, 9.2% in first-quarter 2009 and 5% in second-quarter 2009, overall prices are expected to undergo a short-term rise in the third quarter, iSuppli said. Most components actually are expected to experience price declines in the third quarter, but the average is being skewed by DRAM. However, the prices will revert to declines in the fourth quarter, with a moderate 0.2% decrease, iSuppli estimated.Pricing will decrease moderately during the third quarter for most major memory segments, according to iSuppli. NAND flash will experience a 0.3% decline. NOR pricing will decrease by 1.1%, whereas EEPROM pricing will remain flat. Declines also are expected for standard logic ICs, crystals, oscillators, connectors, resistors and magnetics, said the research firm. Meanwhile, an overall decline is expected for capacitors.Despite these decreases, the overall rise indicates pricing conditions are changing for commodity components, iSuppli said. "iSuppli previously expected price decreases would be of a greater magnitude in the third quarter as commodity component suppliers cut tags to capitalize on rising demand," Pratt said. "However, semiconductor suppliers have scaled back their capacity significantly during the downturn. This means supplies are somewhat tighter than expected, preventing prices from declining as much as expected."Source: iSuppli, compiled by Digitimes, August 2009

Nvidia has announced that Hewlett-Packard (HP) is adopting up to two Tesla GPUs in its Z800 workstation for the high-performance computing market.Based on the massively parallel Nvidia Cuda architecture, Tesla GPUs deliver performance increases to critical code across multiple fields, Nvidia said.The Z800 workstation also adopts Intel's Xeon processor with QuickPath Technology and Intel 5520 chipsets. HP Z800 workstation: Specifications Item Detail Processor Quad-core Intel Xeon 5500 sequence processor Chipset Intel 5520 (Dual) Processor cache 4MB or 8MB (dependent on processor) Form Factor Rackable minitower Maximum memory 192GB, 1333MHz, six-channel DDR3 (3-channels per processor), 12 DIMM slots Graphics Nvidia Quadro NVS 295 (256 MB) Sources: Company, compiled by Digitimes, August 2009HP Z800 workstationPhoto: Company

Worldwide sales of semiconductors for second-quarter 2009 totaled US$51.7 billion, up 17% on quarter but still 20% lower than the US$64.7 billion reported for second-quarter 2008, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA). In June, the sales continued sequential growth to US$17.2 billion."The fourth-consecutive monthly increase in sales is one indicator the industry is returning to normal seasonal growth patterns," said SIA president George Scalise. Focused supply chain management by both producers and customers helped to moderate the impact of the global economic recession on the industry, Scalise added."Inventories have been closely managed, encouraging us to believe that the sequential increase in quarterly sales represents a gradual recovery of demand," Scalise continued. He noted that industry analysts have recently become more optimistic in their forecasts for key demand drivers. "Consensus estimates for unit sales of PCs are now in the range of minus 5% to flat compared to 2008, whereas earlier forecasts were projecting on-year unit declines of 9-12%. In cell phone handsets, analysts now believe the unit decline will be in the range of 7-9% compared to earlier forecasts of a decline of around 15%."In addition, economic stimulus programs in China, including incentives for purchasing consumer products and investment in 3G/TD-SCDMA communications infrastructure, have helped drive semiconductor sales in the world's largest chip market, according to Scalise. "The global macroeconomic environment remains the key factor in determining the timing and rate of recovery for the semiconductor industry." SIA: Global chip sales, 1H09 (US$b) June 2009 2Q09 1H09 Chip sales 17.2 51.7 95.9 M/M 3.7% - - Q/Q - 17.0% - Y/Y (20.0%) (20.0%) (25%) Source: SIA, compiled by Digitimes, August 2009

Spot prices of both DRAM and NAND flash enjoyed a big sequential jump this week (July 27-31) upon news that Samsung Electronics raised its DDR2 prices and Toshiba suffered from a power outage at its NAND flash fab, according to inSpectrum.inSpectrum stated that the spot price of 1Gb DDR grew by about 6-7% this week, with the price of branded chips pegged at US$1.26 as of the noon session of July 31. The rise of DDR3 prices also continued this week with most 1Gb DDR3 chips settling at above US$1.90.Despite news about Samsung's strong stance for DDR2 pricing helped drive up spot pricing this week, inSpectrum expects the large supply of DDR2 chips in the channel will make the price increase difficult to maintain.As for the strong price of DDR3, inSpectrum stressed that availability of DDR3 in the channel is still very limited, meaning the recent price surge is supported by sentiment rather than solid demand from end users.In fact, once chip prices of 1Gb DDR3 are quoted above US$2, many brokers/traders in the spot market would be hesitant to buy as the translated average selling price (ASP) of a 2GB DDR3 module would have grown to over US$30, inSpectrum predicted.For the NAND flash market, anticipation of a price recovery of low-density memory cards amid the speculated Toshiba fab power outage spurred prices of low-density 16Gb NAND flash chip to increase by more than 8% this week to US$4.40 as of the noon session of July 31.inSpectrum attributes the solid price growth of low-density NAND flash to improving demand for 1GB and 2GB microSD cards from handset and camera vendors, which find their sales have improved a lot during the summer holidays. The price of 1GB and 2GB microSD card has grown by 9% and 10%, respectively, this week, the firm stated. inSpectrum estimates that over 60% of global demand for NAND flash will be come from the handset and camera segments in the third quarter of 2009. inSpectrum: Spot price for mainstream 1Gb DRAM chips, Jul 27-31 (US$) Date Branded DDR2 White brand DDR2 Branded DDR3 2009/07/24 1.19 1.14 1.87 2009/07/27 1.19 1.14 1.9 2009/07/28 1.23 1.19 1.9 2009/07/29 1.27 1.22 1.92 2009/07/30 1.26 1.22 1.93 2009/07/31 1.26 1.22 1.93 Source: inSpectrum, compiled by Digitimes, July 2009 inSpectrum: Spot price for mainstream MLC NAND flash, Jul 27-31 (US$) Date 16Gb 32Gb 2009/07/24 3.99 5.83 2009/07/27 4.06 5.94 2009/07/28 4.15 5.98 2009/07/29 4.40 6.08 2009/07/30 4.40 6.01 2009/07/31 4.40 5.99 Source: inSpectrum, compiled by Digitimes, July 2009

Production cutbacks and demand for restocking inventory from emerging markets pushed up NAND flash ASPs by about 20% sequentially in the second quarter of 2009, according to DRAMeXchange. The price rally contributed to major NAND flash suppliers' revenue growth for the quarter.The global top-six NAND flash chip suppliers generated combined revenues of around US$2.79 billion in the second quarter, up 33.6% from US$2.09 billion in the first, said DRAMeXchange. In line with the sales growth, the branded companies also saw their combined shipments up 10% on quarter.Samsung Electronics continued to lead the NAND flash market in the second quarter, but its share slid to 36%, from 37.2% in the first, data compiled by DRAMeXchange showed. Toshiba retained second place with a 34.5% share in the second quarter, while Hynix Semiconductor resumed its seat among the top-three suppliers.Hynix slipped to the fourth in the first quarter, due to insufficient funds for technology migration and the phase-out of its 200mm (8-inch) wafer production, according to previous reports. DRAMeXchange: Global Top-6 NAND flash vendors revenues and market share, 2Q09 (US$m) 2Q09 1Q09 Revenue growth Q/Q Revenues Market share Revenues Market share Samsung 1,037 37.2 % 750 36.0% 36.0% Toshiba 960 34.5% 740 35.5% 35.5% Hynix 288 10.3% 171 8.2% 8.2% Micron 236 8.5% 200 9.6% 9.6% Intel 193 6.9% 155 7.4% 7.4% Numonyx 72 2.6% 70 3.4% 3.4% Total 2,786 - 2,086 - - Source: DRAMeXchange, compiled by Digitimes, July 2009

Micron Technology has announced what it claims to be the industry's first DDR3 load-reduced, dual-inline memory module (LRDIMM) for servers. The new LRDIMMs will be manufactured using Micron's 1.35 volt, 2Gb 50nm DDR3 memory chips.Micron's LRDIMMs currently use Inphi's recently announced isolation memory buffer (iMB) chip in place of a register to reduce the bus load when transferring data between the memory and processor. The new LRDIMMs reduce this load by 50% for a dual-rank module and 75% for a quad-rank module, when compared to today's standard DDR3 server modules – registered DIMMs (RDIMMs).Using RDIMMs can accommodate up to three quad-rank 16GB RDIMMS per processor. However, that same system can support up to nine quad-rank 16GB LRDIMMS per processor, pushing the memory capacity from 48GB to 144GB, Micron said. The new 16GB LRDIMM offers an increase of 57% in system memory bandwidth when compared to an RDIMM.Citing Gartner, Micron said most mid-range enterprise servers today utilize approximately 32GB of DRAM per system, and the capacity is expected to more than triple by 2012.Micron is currently sampling an 8GB LRDIMM devices with select enablers, according to the company. Mass production of its 16GB LRDIMMs is expected to begin in the fourth quarter.

VIA Technologies has announced that Aaeon Technology has adopted its C7 and Eden processors in its the latest ETX motherboard.Designed for niche applications that require high-resolution and dual-channel display support, the ETX-CX700M motherboard is suitable for electronic gaming and entertainment systems. The motherboard combines VIA processors and the VIA CX700M system media processor, providing a range of expansion and storage options and 24-bit dual-channel configurations of LVDS, CRT, DVI and TV outputs.Aaeon ETX-CX700M motherboard based on VIA platformPhoto: Company