IBM affirms commitment to Rambus RDRAMs
By Will Wade
EE Times
(06/02/99, 6:13 p.m. EDT)
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — Stock prices for both Intel Corp. and Rambus Inc. showed significant recovery Wednesday (June 2), after IBM Corp. denied reports that it planned to ditch the high-bandwidth memory technology. The company refuted press reports that appeared Monday suggesting that it no longer planned to include Rambus DRAM chips in its upcoming computer systems, and was preparing to sell off its RDRAM manufacturing assets to a Taiwanese semiconductor maker.
Rambus stock gained steadily today and closed at $73.38, up nearly 10 percent from Tuesday. Following the holiday weekend, the shares opened yesterday well below the previous week's closing price in the $75 range, and continued to tumble all through the session before finishing at $67.03. Intel followed a similar pattern, sliding Tuesday from above $53 to $50.69 at the close. The chip maker gained $1.25 today to reach $51.94. Intel also announced yesterday that it would spend $780 million to acquire Dialogic Corp., which may have been a factor in the share movement.
IBM has strongly denied reports that it would neither make nor use RDRAM chips. The PC division said in a statement that "Rambus will continue to be included in future IBM commercial desktop PCs and . . . Windows NT-based network stations, and we have no plans to change that." In addition, a spokesman for the company's semiconductor unit stressed that IBM holds a license to produce RDRAM chips, "and we will manufacture it."
When, or whether, the mainstream PC industry migrates to high-speed Rambus memory has been a contentious topic this year. While the technology is generally seen as faster than standard SDRAM, it is also proving difficult to manufacture all the components required to include Rambus technology in a PC. Intel has been one of the technology's biggest boosters, which is why IBM's potential shift spurred a decline in Intel's share price.
The reported Rambus defection came as the technology is vying in the PC and memory markets with PC133 SDRAM and double-data-rate SDRAMs. Rambus technology is proprietary, and memory vendors must pay licensing fees to Rambus Inc. to produce the memory chips — a practice that is unpopular but tolerated in the industry.
Intel is on schedule to implement Rambus-compatible chips this year, and expected to see PCs with RDRAM on the shelves before the holidays, a company spokesman said. Intel already suffered a major black eye earlier this year when it revealed that its Camino chip set, which is designed to link RDRAMs with a microprocessor, was behind schedule.
"IBM is a Rambus licensee, and all the indications we have seen suggest that they will follow through on their plans to deliver Rambus products," said Subodh Toprani, vice president and general manager for the logic products division at Rambus (Mountain View, Calif.). Toprani was in contact with IBM executives as recently as last week, and said they had not mentioned any plans to diverge from the Rambus path. Toprani said he confirmed that information with IBM this week, following the reports of the company's potential strategy shift.
"That story is erroneous," the IBM spokesman said.
|
