(UPDATE) Rambus Says Its Technology Will Be In PC Memories Later This Year
Dow Jones Online News, Wednesday, February 24, 1999 at 16:51
SAN FRANCISCO -(Dow Jones)- Chip-technology developer Rambus Inc.
announced at an industry gathering late Tuesday that it will introduce
its technology to the so-called personal computer main memory market
this year.
Gary Harmon, the company's vice president and chief financial
officer, said during a presentation at the BancBoston Robertson Stephens
technology conference Tuesday that Intel Corp. chips using Rambus
technology will be released later this year.
Rambus's technology, designed to enhance the performance of memory
chips, is supported by semiconductor giant Intel (INTC). If the
architecture is adopted as the industry standard, all major producers of
DRAM, or dynamic random access memory, chips would have to use the
design and pay Rambus royalties. Harmon said that most experts forecast
that Rambus's technology will be the dominant memory in PCs by 2001.
Rambus's technology allows data to be transferred between chips at
very high speeds and was used in the popular Nintendo 64 game machine.
The company doesn't manufacture or market chips, but licenses its
technology to major chip makers. Intel would incorporate Rambus-based
DRAM into its chip sets, which run a large percentage of PCs.
Other companies have been pushing different technologies to speed
communications between chips. But rival camps can't agree on a common
competing format. Dell Computer Corp. and Compaq Computer Corp.
confirmed plans to ship PCs with Rambus technology in 1999.
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