Signals & Noise: May 9, 1996
to send a letter to signals & noise via email: |
UMA increases manufacturer's profits
I think Steve Leibson missed the boat in his editorial, "Unified memory: Everything old is new again" (EDN, March 1, 1996, pg 11), when he attributed the return of the unified memory architecture (UMA) to "a worldwide DRAM shortage." This statement contradicts what I have read in other magazines and what I have observed in DRAM prices. If there is a shortage in DRAMs, why are the prices dropping so dramatically?
The real reason for the UMA is to cut the PC manufacturer's costs and increase its profits. This yield is why manufacturers want to cut parts counts (especially laptop manufacturers that want to put more into smaller packages).
The use of UMA will lead to confusion for consumers. How will a user know if Windows can use all of the advertised 16 Mbytes in his laptop? How will she know if 2 Mbytes are reserved for the video system? Will the benchmarks show the reduced performance due to reduced memory bandwidth? Or, will the manufacturers find a way to get around this?
Mike Pelley
Mike.Pelley@cle.ab.com
Corrections and updates
The price for the Am486DE microprocessor ("Embedded 486 processor clocks at 66 MHz" (EDN, Feb 1, 1996, pg 176) is $29 (10,000) and not $56 (10,000).
In "Windows-based EDA tools: shifting into high gear" (EDN, Feb 1, 1996, pg 43), the phone number for PADS Software (Manufacturers' box, pg 50) was listed incorrectly. The correct phone number is (508) 485-4300.
The 16-bit chips in the DSP directory (EDN, March 1, 1996) are fixed point and not floating point, as the table (pg 42) indicates.
| Sound off |