Japanese Buffalo Ltd. anounced that it will ship its first DDR3 memory modules in Japan by the end of the month. The company will offer a kit of 512MB memory modules (2x 512MB), a single 1GB module as well as a 2GB set (2x1GB). The DDR3 memory standard is considered as the successor of the DDR2 SDRAM. It promises power consumption reduction of 40% compared to current DDR2 modules, allowing lower operating voltages (1.5V, compared to 1.8V in DDR2 modules). Buffalo's new modules run at 1,066MHz((PC3-8500) and maintain the 240-pin DIMM interface of DDR2. Intel has preliminarily announced that they expect to be able to offer support for DDR3 in mid 2007 with a version of their upcoming P35 Bearlake chipset. AMD's roadmap indicates their own adoption of DDR3 to come in 2008.