Kingston Interview: Heather Skinner

HyperX and High Latencies

Flash Memory In Bulk

Quality Control via Hand Testing

LR: In so far as DDR and DDR2 are concerned where do you believe these standards are heading?

HS: We expect DDR to be around for a few more years and definitely see the promise already of DDR2. As system, motherboard and various partners begin to embrace the technology, you can be assured we?re on board and ready to deliver.

LR: Does Kingston plan to extend it’s Hyper-X line, and if so in what capacity?

HS: Absolutely, this is a hot area for us. Kingston will continue to offer products for the gaming and enthusiast market. We?re very excited about how the gaming area of our business is unfolding.

LR: Many people have been concerned about the latencies of DDR2, however; it seems their becoming much better. Will Kingston continue to tighten the latencies in its DDR2 lines, and how low can they get?

HS: Quality and stability is key to everything we produce. Kingston will continue to offer the best possible memory to the market and whenever we can tighten the latencies in any of our modules, we will do so. By the same token, if we can?t achieve those standards we will not release a product. Remember, we?re subject to material shortages like everybody else and DRAM availability always plays a pivotal role.

LR: Will Kingston continue to build and sell larger 1GB sticks, packaging these as 2GB kit pairs in the Hyper-X line?

HS: Kingston will continue to build and sell larger 1 GB memory modules?sold as individual modules or as dual-channel kits. Our customers often purchase modules in pairs due to their motherboard specifications, so we offer these kits as well. Not all systems are able to support anything larger.

LR: With the demise of the infamous Winbond BH-5 IC, there seems to be more focus on PCBs themselves. Since Kingston announced their release of HyperX PC4300 running at 533MHz with just 2.7V was this memory based on Samsung TCCD IC? And how much work went into tweaking the PCB to reach these speeds?

HS: Per Kingston policy we do not disclose information regarding the ICs used on our HyperX products. As long as they meet our high quality spec. we are able to use multiple vendors, not necessarily one.