Ted, you can get some idea of what RDRAM production can support from this article, courtesy of Gene Parrot on the Rambus thread: idc.com
"The second quarter was difficult for most personal workstation vendors, who struggled with RDRAM
shortages while trying to meet customer demand. Despite the supply constraints, the percentage of
systems shipping with RDRAM increased from 38% in the first quarter to 75% in the second quarter,"
said Kara Yokley, analyst in IDC's Workstations research group.
For the first quarter in over a year, shipments in the personal workstation market declined. Many
vendors faced memory supply constraints. With the memory market expected to have further shortages
through the end of the year, workstation vendors could continue to be affected.
Dell, which was the sole vendor with an RDRAM-only strategy in Q200, was mostly unaffected by
memory shortages. It captured the number-one position in shipments of branded Windows NT
workstations with 93,000 units worldwide and 34% market share. Dell's shipments of workstations
grew 8% from the previous quarter. Dell also was number one in the United States with a 43% market
share.
Further reporting from that IDC report at semibiznews.com. Right now, there are indications that Rambus supply isn't very constrained, but that seems to be stem more from the demand side, as the 820 fades into the sunset. If a truly massive launch of the P4 was being anticipated, I'd expect the RDRAM supply situation to be getting tighter, not looser.
Cheers, Dan. |
