According to sources ATI Technologies Inc. said it has worked with DRAM vendors to define GDDR-3, an alternative to DDR-2 that should hit the market next year with speeds starting at 500-MHz to strenghten their position as performance leader and to have more influence on special tachnology demands. Michael Litt, technical manager for strategic marketing at ATI said that GDDR3 was born out of the desire and the necessity for ATI to gain more control over where memory technologies were heading. GDDR-3 in many ways is similar to the DDR-2 specification that has already been defined and is expected to succeed the current DDR, but there are some key differences tailored for the needs of high-bandwidth graphics controllers, Litt said. "The bottom line is that the demand of system memory and the demands of memory for graphics are diverging. You can't just overlay the work done at Jedec that was intended for 200-MHz," Litt said, referring to the standards-making group that has defined DDR and DDR-2. "With GDDR-3 for graphics you're running at 500-MHz and up to 800-MHz and you're looking at data rates of 1- to 1.6-gigabits per second per pin." Related link: ATI