TCCD looks to be gone the way of the dodo guys, thats pretty much what i am hearing. There won't be anymore either.

Samsung is discontinuing its TCCD memory chips, we learned exclusively just hours ago.

When we got the phone call from our agent Eva, out in Tapei, we knew what was coming. We'd heard chatter from the industry that Samsung was going to play this hand. Our only intel suggested that it would be some time this month. Now we know the full extent of the attack.

Let's bring you up to speed: TCCD memory chips are used in some of the top-rated DDR modules from the big names. Kingston, OCZ and Corsair all use the chips to power their low-latency PC3200 parts. The TCCD can run with latency settings of 2-2-2-5 for maximum overclockability. These modules are dangerous, folks.

With these chips gone, there is going to be a big gap in the market waiting to be filled. Samsung hopes that this shortage is going encourage the big memory players to push harder with DDR2 rather than continuing to sell high-end DDR parts. They're playing aggressively for sure, and they mean business.

We do have previous form for this, so let's correlate the data. Our files show us that it's not the first time enthusiast memory has suffered a serious attack. Last year, the Winbond BH-5 chip was the ultimate overclocker, before Winbond stopped manufacturing it. TCCD stepped into its toasty shoes as a product filling a demand, and we have our suspicions that things aren't going to turn out just the way that Samsung planned them.

We're working up a scenario where Micron, one of the largest RAM chip manufacturers, would create an equivalent chip and ship it exclusively to Crucial technologies, who would then be the only company capable of supplying top-rated enthusiast RAM, through its Ballistix line. This would be a great play for them, but we don't think they're that smart. Such an outfit couldn't pull off something this big.

Right now, our best working guess is that one of the other big manufacturers is going to take the Jack Bauer role and end this outrageously memory hostage-taking, by coming up with a new plan to ship the market its fill of high-end memory. It's a daring counter-play that would require perfect execution, but it just might work. It could, however, take a little longer than 24 hours

...The most common questions were: Is this article factual? Should I buy more memory now? How long will the current TCCD supply last? What's going to replace the Samsung TCCD IC? Today we have been in contact with Corsair, Kingston, OCZ, Muskin, and Samsung. Instead of giving you "rumors" from various sources we thought that it'd be nice to get official comments from each company about the Samsung TCCD article and see what the truth is from the people that matter.

We also have some interesting information reguarding some of the Winbond IC's that you all know and used to love. You will have to make it to the end of the article to find out about what we have to say on the Winbond IC's though!

What The Memory Companies Say

For this article we went straight to some the biggest enthusiast memory producers in the world and got comments from them on the issue. All of the comments seen here were taken on the afternoon of Feb 9, 2005.

Corsair Memory: Joe

"We've heard the rumors too, but reality seems to be a bit different. We think we're by far Samsung's biggest customer for that chip. We haven't experienced any shortages recently, in fact our sales of XL modules are at record levels. And we just renewed our contract with Samsung so we don't anticipate any shortages in the near future. I don't know about the rest of the market, but Corsair is in good shape."

After speaking with Corsair Memory it is clear that they are not worried about the current rumors. Corsair Memory currently does have large stock of TCCD IC's and also noted that they have a six month contract for additional monthly shipments from Samsung. While I can't disclose the amount of IC's they get monthly, it is a large number and everything is going just fine.

Kingston Technology: Heather

"Today, Kingston does not have any availability issues with our Low Latency HyperX products. However, like the stock market, the memory industry is volatile and can change at any time. Kingston's HyperX modules are not always manufactured with a particular build of material (ie. DRAM). With qualified DRAM we are able to use multiple vendors. This enables Kingston to maintain flexibility. We work with all of the top tier DRAM companies and will continue to do so."

Kingston states that they have no availability issued with the Samsung TCCD's used on their Low Latency HyperX memory. Kingston also hinted that even if there is an issue, they are always working on the next best thing.

Mushkin Memory: Tom

“We have been in contact with our Samsung representatives and have been closely monitoring the Samsung TCCD IC news stories. Currently only our Mushkin High Performance Black memory uses those IC’s. Mushkin has plenty of chips and expect our current stock to last a good month to a month in a half. Mushkin is not directly impacted by the recent rumors and expect everything to pass once the inventory situation is corrected.”

From what Mushkin understands, Samsung is not permanently ending production on the TCCD’s. Samsung has a large inventory of non-TCCD IC’s and is trying to clear out the inventory. Once the other IC’s are out of the warehouse, Samsung will again start producing TCCD’s in March 2005ish.

OCZ Technology: Ryan

"Back in late 2003 Samsung stated that they stopped making the TCCD IC's in 'production quantity.' This could be part of the rumors that we are seeing today. OCZ expects to have supply on these parts for the foreseeable future. We already have a non-samsung based 2-2-2 part on the market anyway. I dont see the big deal here, winbond stopped production 6 months before the product started to get hard to buy! Why are people freaking out?"

OCZ again confirms that there is no major supply issue on their side and go on to state they have other non-samsung IC's that they use on certain 2-2-2 memory modules. And we too would like to know why people are freaking out!

hi eva,

is this ram TCCD based?

http://www.geilusa.com/proddetail.asp?linenumber=18#

also, im thinking about buy ram from ebay, anyone u would recommend?