Hi Don Green; Nobody asked. RDRAM is dead, and it's obvious to all now. Look at what Jdaasoc said. But I'll interpret your comment as a request for commentary...
The Intel news is positive for Rambus, but not very. It's an indication that Intel thought that RDRAM was going to be mainstream back in late 1998 or early 1999 when they started the project. We already knew that Intel was delusional back then. Since that time, Intel started DDR designs in both Northbridges and NPUs. Since the Northbridges are simpler, the DDR Northbridges show up first. Intel's DDR designs for NPUs will show up in about a year from now.
While Intel had a monopoly on chipsets, they have no such monopoly on NPUs. And I've already shown that most NPUs do not use RDRAM. (For example, see #reply-16577332 #reply-16500718 #reply-15928629 #reply-15759164 )
The total amount of memory used by the NPU market is tiny compared to the amount of memory used in the PC market. If a DRAM type wants to be the mainstream memory type it has to conquer the PC market. The NPU market just doesn't matter much. In 2001 "Communications" is 8% of the DRAM market increasing to only 21% in 2005. By comparison, the areas where Rambus been creamed include server (solidly DDR), notebook (DDR only), peripherals (solidly DDR) and PCs other than workstations make up 51% of the market as late as 2005. This is according to a chart presented by Elpida at Rambus' own forum: (page 5):
rambus.com
The basic fact is that there are thousands and thousands of applications for DRAM, but Rambus has won very few of them. One win by a minority player in an obscure corner of the market isn't going to make a difference.
Any memory that wants to become the mainstream favorite has to win in the desktop and server areas. Someday communications may become important. But that day is years into the future, and DDR is doing fine in that segment.
Heck, there were even a few graphics board makers that came out with RDRAM based boards, where are they now?
-- Carl |
