*****For immediate use April 15th, 2002
NEC Ships QDR II/DDR II Family of High-Speed SRAM Products
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| "QDR II/DDR II Family" |
TOKYO and SANTA CLARA, Calif., April 15, 2002 - NEC Corp. (NASDAQ: NIPNY) and its wholly owned subsidiary in the United States, NEC Electronics Inc., today announced the availability of their Quad Data Rate (QDRTM) II and Double Data Rate (DDR) II family of static random access memory (SRAM) products. These products are fully compliant with the second-generation of high-performance QDR and DDR communication memory standards for network switches, routers and other communications applications.
"Emerging network standards like OC-192 and OC-768 are becoming increasingly popular in the network switch and router markets, and the data rates required to support these standards are beyond the limits of conventional SRAM technologies, " said Hiroyuki Goto, senior manager for memory engineering and marketing, NEC Electronics Inc. "NEC is proud to be one of a handful of vendors currently shipping this leading-edge memory technology."
The first of NEC's QDR II / DDR II products is available in an 18-megabit (Mb) configuration, with a 36 Mb version scheduled for future availability. Additionally, NEC's QDR II/DDR II family of SRAM products is available with input/output (I/O) configurations that support either a burst length of two or a burst length of four.
NEC's 18 Mb QDR II SRAM devices use the QDR II-standard 165-pin, 13 millimeter (mm) x 15mm fine-pitch, ball-grid array (FBGA) packaging, providing significant space savings and shorter bus lengths for minimized delays, skews and electromagnetic interference (EMI). The products also feature a low 1.8-volt power source to accommodate the stringent power specifications characteristic of high-end routers and switches. The devices also provide an unprecedented data valid window of 65 percent of the clock cycle or a 1.3-nanosecond data valid window at 250 megahertz (MHz).
About QDR II / DDR II SRAMs
QDR II and DDR II SRAMs enable system designers to maximize bandwidth in data-intensive communication applications by allowing operation speeds of up to 333 MHz. The QDR II architecture features two data ports (input and output) operating twice per clock cycle to deliver a total of four data instructions per cycle. The resulting performance increase is particularly valuable for high-end communications applications, where the fast movement of large amounts of data is essential. Single I/O DDR II devices allow double data rate transfers over the I/O data bus and are optimized for data-streaming operations. The QDR II / DDR II SRAM specification is popular with many network processor vendors, and several network processors are now available with QDR II interfaces.
The QDR II and DDR II specification was mutually defined, developed and delivered by the QDR Co-Development Team for the high-speed networking market.
Pricing and Availability
Engineering samples of NEC's first QDR II / DDR II SRAM products are available now with a sample price of $80, and production-level availability scheduled for third quarter 2002. The chart below illustrates NEC's QDR II and DDR II offerings, including burst length, memory configuration and part numbers.
| Type | BurstLength | Config. | Part Number |
| QDR-II | Burst 2 | x8 |  PD44165082 |
| x18 | PD44165182 |
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| x36 | PD44165362 |
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| Burst 4 | x8 | PD44165084 |
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| x18 | PD44165184 |
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| x36 | PD44165364 |
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| DDR-II CIO | Burst 2 | x8 | PD44164082 |
| x18 | PD44164182 |
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| x36 | PD44164362 |
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| Burst 4 | x8 | PD44164084 |
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| x18 | PD44164184 |
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| x36 | PD44164364 |
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| DDR-II SIO | Burst 2 | x8 | PD44164085 |
| x18 | PD44164185 |
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| x36 | PD44164365 |
About the QDR Co-Development Team
In 1999, the QDR Co-Development Team was created to define a new family of SRAM architectures for high-performance communications applications. The QDR Co-Development Team currently consists of Cypress, IDT, Micron, NEC, Samsung and Hitachi. These companies cooperate in the development of the QDR family of networking SRAMs. They design and manufacture this family of products in their own fabrication facilities and develop products according to their own schedules, competing in the marketplace. Additional information on the QDR SRAM technologies, including roadmaps, is available at http://www.qdrsram.com/.
About NEC Corporation
NEC Corporation (NASDAQ: NIPNY) is a leading provider of Internet solutions, dedicated to meeting the specialized needs of its customers in the key computer network and electron device fields through its three market-focused in-house companies: NEC Solutions, NEC Networks and NEC Electron Devices. NEC Corporation, with its in-house companies, employs more than 150,000 people worldwide and saw net sales of approximately $43 billion in fiscal year 2000-2001. For further information, visit the NEC home page at: http://www.nec.com.
About NEC Electronics Inc.
NEC Electronics Inc., headquartered in Santa Clara, California, is one of the leading developers, manufacturers and suppliers of semiconductor products in the United States. Committed to meeting customers' cost, performance and time-to-market requirements, the company offers solutions ranging from standard products to system-on-a-chip (SoC) solutions, as well as customized products for next-generation designs. NEC Electronics also offers customers the benefits of a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in Roseville, California, and the global manufacturing capabilities of its parent company, NEC Corporation (NASDAQ: NIPNY). For more information about products offered by NEC Electronics Inc., visit the NEC Electronics website at http://www.necel.com.
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NEC Electronics Inc. is either a registered trademark or trademark of NEC Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. Quad Data Rate, QDR and QDR II are trademarks of the QDR Co-Development Team. All other registered trademarks or trademarks are property of their respective owners.
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