Hi all; A lot of noise has been generated recently to the effect that the memory makers are losing money on DDR. Since DDR is selling at higher prices than SDRAM, I doubt this is true. But to argue about this is to miss the point of what the next mainstream memory will be.
Mainstream memory is not about profitability for the memory makers. In fact, niche market memories are typically more profitable for the memory makers. If the memory makers could have their way, all memory would be sold like RDRAM, as high profit, low volume, restricted supplier count, niche memories.
Instead, mainstream memory is about the profitability for the memory users. Users select the mainstream memory because it is cheaper. This is bad for the memory makers, but it is good for the memory users.
For that reason, looking at Dell is more useful than comparing the profitability of Samsung with Micron. In fact, that's probably as far as Rambus longs would like to look, but here are some companies that bet heavily on the assumption of DDR as the next mainstream memory, and their recent sales and profit reports:
Nvidia was first to get DDR into the graphics market:
Nvidia's sales surge 62% in quarter from a year ago
Semiconductor Business News, May 22, 2001
Nvidia Corp. today reported a 10.4% sequential increase in revenues to $240.9 million in the company's fiscal first quarter, ended April 29, compared to $218.2 million in the prior three-month period. The graphics and multimedia chip supplier said its revenues jumped 62.2% from $148.5 million in the fiscal quarter last year.
...
ebnonline.com
Other companies betting heavily on DDR becoming mainstream are VIA, SiS, ALi, AMD, Serverworks, but the financial effects from these decisions aren't going to show up until a quarter or two from now. VIA, of course, has been highly profitable, but most of that was due to their supporting PC133 while Intel supported RDRAM.
-- Carl |
