KZ,
<However, Rambus has caused one significant success already: they've caused the dram makers to standardize the evolutionary path in a way that would never have happened otherwise. While there are still several alternatives (VC, Sldram, etc), most of the non-Rambus efforts are now unified in standards and this has resulted in the evolutionary path being stronger than it had been before. >
I'm not seeing quite the level of cooperation on the non-Rambus fronts that you are seeing. The SLDRAM consortium fell apart. With respect to the other technologies, it appears that each memory vendor is pushing its own standard (VC DRAM, SGRAM, DDR) and by pushing, I mean actively promoting, not just building. Micron is pushing DDR. There's one manufacturer (I forget which one right now) pushing VC DRAM. Everyone seems to want their own favorite, and there's no coordinated effort to produce a standard. It seems to me that the formation of this new RDRAM counsel that includes the leading 5 or so memory manufacturers should take most of the remaining wind out of the sails for promoting any competitive technologies. I expect that PC-133 will be built as a replacement for PC-100 in the short term so that Intel can fend off Via. But other than that, I don't see a lot of coordinated support for anything else. Can you name a major DDR win? That seems to be the leading contender, and I can't think of anyone who's announced DDR support in a high-volume (based on memory sales) product. Reliance has announced that they'll support it in their servers, so I suppose that's the closest (I'm assuming all those who use the Reliance chipset will then support DDR, which would be significant).
What coordinated efforts am I missing?
Dave |
