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UNIFIED MEMORY ARCHITECTURE MAKES COMEBACK FOR INTERNET
Last year, just as Intel Corp. of Santa Clara, Calif.
was promoting its Unified Memory Architecture concept, Microsoft Corp.
of Redmond, Wash. was rolling out Windows 95. The two efforts had contradictory
purposes and Intel had to put its objective second to Microsoft’s.
With the advent of the next generation of Windows, Intel’s UMA
may have another chance to prevail and the set-top box PC may be the
reason. Here’s why.
The Windows 95 operating system is a memory hog. The minimum memory
configuration that can support the operating system and an application
operating simultaneously is 8 Mbytes. Up until Windows 95 debuted, the
minimum memory configuration to run a PC was 4 Mbytes. Microsoft’s
Windows 95 rollout included memory upgrades that would allow users to
run the operating system in existing systems.
Intel’s UMA was an effort to eliminate the need for separate CPU
memory and graphics subsystem buffer by allowing the graphics system
to use CPU memory. One stumbling block to this happening in the past
was that CPU memory was too slow to handle graphics subsystem access
speed requirements. That has changed as CPU memory speed requirements
have risen due to faster Pentium processors—75 MHz moving to over
100 MHz.
To accommodate these faster CPU operating speeds, PC makers have begun
replacing fast page mode DRAM with the faster extended data out (EDO)
DRAMs. Fujitsu America Inc. in San Jose, Calif. says the EDO will begin
displacing fast page mode DRAM by the middle of this year.
In addition, Microsoft will soon debut the next generation of Windows
95. This version will push the minimum DRAM configuration from its current
8 Mbyte level up to 12-Mbytes. With DRAM makers anxious to transition
from 4-Mbit DRAM to 16-Mbit DRAMs, most PCs will come with a full 16-Mbits
instead of 12-Mbits. This scenario will be driven by the current drop
in DRAM memory pricing.
Suppliers have reported price decrease as substantial as 15% on some
memory products in the second reduction this year. With the extra capacity,
a unified memory architecture makes sense as a means of cost reducing
mid-range and low-end PC offerings. It also facilitates the set-top
PC strategy as well.
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