Enhanced Performance Profiles are here, but JEDEC does not condone them
Yesterday we ran an article about a new memory standard, dubbed Enhanced
Performance Profiles. The new NVIDIA backed memory proposal uses
areas of the JEDEC SPD data and command areas for specific hooks that allow
upcoming nForce motherboards to overclock automatically and allow for fine tune
control of memory voltages and frequencies.
NVIDIA cast the first stone at JEDEC, the standards committee for solid state
memory devices, claiming existing JEDEC specifications are missing critical
specifications for overclocking. NVIDIA's EPP memory proposal claims EPP will
bring an open standard to memory manufacturers and that the platform has been
submitted to JEDEC for approval. However, the Chairman of the JEDEC SPD
group issued the following statement to memory manufacturers earlier today:
This week an industry announcement was made for a “New
Open Standard Memory Specification” called “Enhanced Performance Profiles” or
EPP. This proposal suggests that it can “allow memory manufacturers to
integrate additional module performance data” by redefining the manufacturer’s
data region, bytes 99-127.
As chairman of the JEDEC SPD Task Group, I feel it is my responsibility to
inform the committee that this EPP specification was not developed in my task
group. In fact, we have not seen a first showing on the topic.
EPP is not a JEDEC endorsed specification and should not be misconstrued in
the industry as such. I do encourage the sponsors of the concept, or any
other companies wishing to properly document higher DDR2 speed grades, to
develop a truly open specification by submitting a proposal to the JEDEC
committee and to the SPD Task Group and following the well established
guidelines by which open standards are developed.
Hopefully JEDEC and NVIDIA can resolve and approve such a
standard, though JEDEC has been extremely hesitant to approve technologies that
run out of band. Considering that NVIDIA's EPP purposely runs out of
specification, it may take a bit of negotiating on both sides to come to a
middle ground on this issue. Previous standards proposed to JEDEC have
sometimes taken years to get final approval, which means NVIDIA's Tritium program
may already be facing hostility before it gets out the door.
Update 05/16/2006: NVIDIA public relations has contacted DailyTech claiming EPP has not been submitted to JEDEC. Instead, NVIDIA's Bryan Del Rizzo says "We told editors who were briefed beforehand that we would be submitting to JEDEC for possible ratification at the earliest possible opportunity."
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