Intel vs. Rambus - EBNews reports that Intel confirmed that they are working on a DDR chipset for their Pentium 4 chips. Intel says that they will release it when DDR becomes mainstream in the memory market. Of course, this might not be until 2003, after the Intel/Rambus contract expires. Paul Otellini's statement is even more confusing: "We will take advantage of DDR, after introducing a single-data-rate SDRAM chipset [for Pentium 4] next year." Makes me wonder what inflection the comma between "DDR" and "after" is supposed to imply. If you notice, the statement is intentionally very ambiguous. In any case, The Register seized the opportunity to quote an ex-Intel employee who says Intel is dumping Rambus. This leads beautifully into OSOpinion's Top 10 reasons that Rambus will sue Intel. Now, let me point out explicitly how Intel could follow through with their statements and still not break the Rambus contract:
2001:
Pentium 4 SDRAM chipset released by Intel
2002:
SDRAM is still mainstream, but DDR gains marketshare over SDRAM
2003:
Rambus contract expires, Intel collects $1 billion in Rambus stock options and promptly sells them. DDR becomes mainstream in the eyes of Intel, and now they release a DDR chipset. Smooth.
Rambus licensees go from 5 to 4 - The Register points out that Elpida, the joint memory production corporation formed by NEC and Hitachi, has signed onto Rambus' license. After December 31, 2000, that means that the current 5 licensees of DDR/SDRAM through Rambus (Hitachi, NEC, Samsung, Oki, Toshiba) will drop to four licensees (Elpida, Samsung, Oki, Toshiba). I just thought that was kind of funny. The license signing dispels any rumor that NEC-Hitachi would attempt to fight Rambus once they joined forces.
Quick Links - Intel announced that they are on track to meet Q4 revenues, and the stock market breathed a sigh of relief. The Register reports that a power plant in Taiwan went out for 12 hours, affecting some chip production. ViaHardware has a review of the MSI K7T Pro 2 motherboard with the Via KT133 chipset (for socket A of course), and Overclockers Australia has an innovative case mod that will surely shock and delight.
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