After we got back from CES this year, we reported back on the industry’s speculation of DDR and where it’s heading in the near future. It’s pretty apparent that DDR isn’t going to budge until after two years, if not more. Aside that, almost all memory makers had the same answers prepared for us, which were that we shouldn’t expect much from DDR in the near future. And quite honestly, this statement was actually true at the time, but things have started to take turn for the better, perhaps.

In our recent round of meetings with memory makers, we got mixed replies from the companies we talked to. Some companies said DDR development has revived and chipmakers including Samsung and others have started to concentrate on DDR once more. Initially, chipmakers stopped the development of DDR around the CES timeframe, which led to the aforementioned replies from all memory makers. In simpler terms, DDR development is pretty much at a halt, but companies who are willing to look hard enough will find some hidden gems still left in the market to be discovered.

The second set of companies said DDR development is practically a waste of resources at this point and those who are continuing to develop the memory are targeting yesterday’s market. Quite honestly, we disagree with that wholeheartedly. Although DDR2 is gaining momentum and should pick up speed by the end of this year, DDR is far from a stale standard. In fact, DDR will be just as strong as DDR2 until AMD starts supporting DDR2, at least in the enthusiast segment. The mass-market appeal between the two will be quite different when you go up the OEM ladder. Intel exclusive OEMs like Dell will certainly make the DDR2 transition smoother for the industry, without a doubt.

Finally, the third set of companies aren’t particularly making any efforts to continue to dig for hidden gems in DDR, but if the demand is there they are willing to change their stance and think about the aforementioned standard seriously to continue to support demand and development.

The hidden gems we are talking about are OCZ’s VX memory that performs above par at stock settings and their recently announced PC5000 memory, which is designed exclusively for the latest line of DFI motherboards. According to OCZ, PC5000 is one of the undiscovered gems that are only designed for a specific motherboard, but it’s released to emphasize the revival of the industry.

DDR2 development is going strong in all companies, but there’s one thing that comes as an unexpected surprise (or as a shock, depending on how you want to perceive it). This is the fact that you may very well see DDR3 starting to make the headlines before the end of this year. Some memory companies are already thinking ahead and working on production samples. It would be interesting to see where the three-way battle leads to, especially considering the mature state of DDR and immature state of DDR2. Who knows where DDR3 will land between the two. That being said, DDR3 is a topic on it’s own for a later time.

There you have it folks. The DDR industry went from being completely dead to a revival state with mixed replies all across the industry. It looks like we may never be able to put an end to DDR discussion anytime soon.