David of Vertical Memory

The Dynamic RAM has been the main memory of most computers since the 1970s.  This presentation will tell the story of DRAM development from its beginning and the role of Silicon Mountain (Colorado Springs, CO), in the history of DRAM.  A core team of DRAM designers from Inmos Corporation in Colorado Springs developed the fastest 64Kb and 256Kb DRAM products in the world during the 1980s.  When the team came to Ramtron, a non-volatile DRAM startup in 1986, they developed the first ferroelectric RAM (FRAM). A joint venture company, United Memories, was created between Ramtron and NMB Semiconductor in Japan to develop the fastest 1Mb and 4Mb DRAMs.  Ramtron capitalized on this technology to create a unique cached DRAM product, the Enhanced DRAM, which targeted the highest performance PCs.  Ramtron and its subsidiary, Enhanced Memory Systems developed a series of the fastest PC motherboards and computers during the 1990s using the EDRAM, the Enhanced Synchronous DRAM (ESDRAM) and the Enhanced High Speed DRAM (HSDRAM).  By the 2000s, the Enhanced Memory DRAM technology morphed into the world’s highest density SRAM (ESRAM) and was used as L2 Cache for the high end Hewlett Packard PA-8800 RISC processor. Parts of the same DRAM team from United Memories continues DRAM development in Silicon Mountain today (40-years later) as ISSI.

Biography:

David Bondurant has been involved with the computer and semiconductor industry for 49-years.  He was a computer architect at Control Data, Sperry-Univac, and Honeywell.  He was involved with the government-sponsored advanced semiconductor program called VHSIC (Very High Speed Integrated Circuits) at Univac & Honeywell where he developed microprocessor and ASIC semiconductor products in bipolar CML, CMOS, and radiation hard CMOS.  He was involved with emerging non-volatile RAM marketing at industry leading companies, Ramtron (FRAM), Simtek (non-volatile SRAM), and Freescale Semiconductor/Everspin Technologies (MRAM).  He was VP of Marketing & Applications for Enhanced Memory Systems that developed the Enhanced DRAM, ESDRAM, HSDRAM, and ESRAM.

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