Hi Guy Peter Cordaro; I'm surprised you didn't get more duff for this post a while ago: #reply-8506223
One of the links is stale, but this one is still there, a monument to a problem with bus lines that are too long, and a testament to an increase in mother board costs:
developer.intel.com
By the way, someone replied to you that Nintendo was able to ship the earlier Rambus chips on a 2-layer PCB. (That is, it had no ground or power planes.) This was because they were using Rambus technology where it should be used, in a dedicated, small machine.
The differences between that Nintendo and a PC are manifold:
(1) The Nintendo ships in just one form, the PC goes out in all kinds.
(2) The Nintendo is largely not user upgradeable, the PC has to be robust enough to allow the user to add other equipment, changing the noise environment.
(3) The Nintendo memory is soldered into the mother board, the PC has to have memory that is replaceable by the user.
(4) The Nintendo only put one DRAM on a memory channel, the PC planned on putting as many as 32.
(5) The generality of the PC means that it is probably tougher to get FCC clearance, and the PC has a lot more wires running a lot longer and at a much higher frequency.
I think these are a sufficient number of differences to explain the difference between the success of the two applications. In addition, the newer RDRAM runs at a higher frequency, but the chip processes are better now also.
In short, the Nintendo Rambus usage was an example of good engineering. Putting Rambus into PCs was not a good idea.
-- Carl
P.S. I really can't believe that you are long this stock. |
