SAN JOSE, Calif. -- In its quest for speeding up information, computer memory design firm Rambus Monday announced a new parallel bus logic interface family - codenamed Redwood.

The products offer a per pin data rate of 400MHz to 6.4GHz; backwards compatibility with existing LVDS-based standards such as HyperTransport, SPI-4 and RapidIO; low-voltage differential signaling; FlexPhase timing calibration circuit technology; and dynamic current and termination capabilities. The company claims the products are capable of running up to ten times faster than best-of-class processor busses.

Los Altos, Calif.-based Rambus said the new offerings addresses intra-board applications including processor, chipset and network chip connections. The company said the Redwood products, which are now available now for licensing, are best suited for low latency and low power parallel bus applications.

"The technology is a perfect addition to our portfolio of logic interface solutions as it provides our customers' with high performance, parallel bus connections that complement our RaSer family of high-performance serial link interfaces," said Rambus Logic Interface Division vice president Kevin Donnelly.

Rambus chips are used in PCs, video game consoles, and other electronic systems. The company licenses its technology in the form of ASIC (define) cells that are incorporated into high-performance memory and logic chips. The cells and system-level solutions are incorporated into hundreds of products by all of the top-name semiconductor manufacturers including Toshiba, NEC, and Samsung Electronics.

Last month, Rambus licensed the technology to Sony and Toshiba for their joint "Cell" processor being designed for the next-generation Playstation. Toshiba recently inked a deal to license Rambus' "Yellowstone" technology from for its next generation DRAM (define) systems.

The company also licenses its memory technology to Intel (which, however, has come to rely on Rambus' technology for fewer and fewer of its products).

That squabbling has seemed to subside for now with Rambus set to disclose more technical detail and usage of Redwood at the Intel Developer Forum on Thursday.

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