FB-DIMM, Fully Buffered Dual In-line Memory Module, is a new memory architecture that we have earlier reported about here at NH and to regular consumers this technology will not be something you will bump into for quite a while. FB-DIMM has been developed for the server market and will contribute everything from a higher bandwidth, better reliability and considerably higher memory capacity per channel compared to today’s memory standards. According to the specifications that has now been set FB-DIMM modules use regular DDR2 memory chips and an integrated AMB circuit (Advanced Memory Buffer). The latter is the circuit that keeps track of the data transported between the modules and the memory controller.
To show you the advantages with FB-DIMM standard we quote one or our previous news reports about FB-DIMM.
“FB-DIMM is a serial data transfering technology such as Serial ATA and PCI Express. FB-DIMM modules use a serial bus with an AMB chip (Advanced Memory Buffer) that connect the memory modules into one channel. With up to 6 channels with 8 FB-DIMM modules per channel the technology sports up to 192GB memory on a single memory controller, a great advantage to regular DDR2 technology that support 4 memory modules with two channels.”
FB-DIMM is expected to be supported by AMD’s future Opteron processors and the technology will in the future be able to used with DDR3 memory with considerably higher frequencies, a memory standard being investigated by JEDEC at the moment.
