Denni, my latest opinions on Rambus:
1) Near term: The shortage of RIMMs is a big thing right now. I was hoping that early this year, the high prices of RIMMs would drop, thereby increasing Rambus' penetration into the market before DDR gets here. Unfortunately, it looks like supply is going to be rather tight throughout all of 2000, I think.
The good news is that for the high-end, like for systems with 733 MHz processors and above, there really is no other DRAM alternative right now. PC100 is now being relegated to the low-end, while PC133 is a rather insignificant step up. Perhaps that's a big reason why demand for RDRAM is so high, thereby leading to the shortage in supply.
2) Mid-term: DDR is going to happen. No question about it. The DRAM itself will be relatively easy to make. The question is support. I don't think Intel will be able to support DDR before 2001. That leaves the alternative chipset companies, like Via and ServerWorks (formerly known as RCC). They should do very well selling DDR-based chipsets (assuming they don't stumble in delivery), but I don't think it'll be enough to convince the entire market to choose DDR over RDRAM.
So I see a VHS vs. Beta war forming in the mid-term. That war should last until the next generation of DRAM technologies are released, such as DDR-II or Rambus II (whatever Rambus' next standard will be called).
3) Long-term: I think the new consortium of DRAM companies, of which Intel is a member, is the key to the long-term. I don't know whether Rambus fits into that consortium or not. Certainly that group can decide on Rambus' upcoming technology as a standard, provided the terms of royalties are agreeable to everyone. I guess it all depends on how strong Rambus' next-generation technology looks in comparison to DDR-II.
4) Lawsuit against Hitachi: Personally, I don't think that lawsuit really stands a chance, if the patents involved are far-reaching and cover many DRAM technologies, including DDR. I don't know the details of the lawsuit and how strong Rambus' case is. Either Rambus thinks they have a very strong case here, or Rambus is desperate, because if they lose, a lot of their other patents could be rendered powerless in court.
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