Techonology : IBM Develops Another ‘Fastest’ Chip

International Business Machines, in its second breakthrough in semiconductors in a week, said Wednesday that it has developed the world’s fastest one-megabit computer memory chip.

IBM said the experimental DRAM, or dynamic random access memory, chip was made at its manufacturing plant in Yasu, Japan. It reported the chip at a technical conference in Kyoto, Japan.

The Armonk, N.Y.-based company said the chip can operate two to three times faster than current one-megabit chips, which can store 1 million bits of information, the equivalent of about 100 pages of double-spaced typewritten text.

IBM said the new DRAM can retrieve a bit of data in 22 billionths of a second. DRAMs are the most common type of memory chip used in computers. The tiny slivers of silicon are also used in most other electronics products, from microwave ovens to jet fighter navigation systems.

Last week, IBM said it began making the fastest one-megabit DRAM in volume production. The chip retrieves a bit of data in 65 billionths of a second. It will be used in IBM’s AS/400 minicomputers.

IBM is the largest producer of semiconductors in the world but does not sell its chips to other companies.