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IBM confirms it will use PC-133 this year
By Peter Brown
San Jose--IBM's confirmation last week that it would use PC-133 SDRAM in its Aptiva brand PCs--and the potential that other OEMs may follow Big Blue's lead--puts the spotlight on the question of how fast the infrastructure for PC-133 can ramp.
Sufficient supply of chipsets and memory seems to be the main issue with making PC-133 a reality in coming months. The technology already has the support of virtually every top-tier DRAM supplier including NEC, Toshiba, Micron, LG Semicon, Hyundai, Hitachi, Infineon and IBM, who all expect to be shipping memories this year.
Now it appears that every minor and major PC OEM plans to use PC-133 this year or in the future in some form, said Dean Hays, director of marketing at Via Technologies Inc., a leading chipset vendor based in Taipei, Taiwan.
"You name an OEM, any OEM, and they are working with us or have an agreement with us for PC-133 SDRAM," said Hays. "OEMs, DRAM, and module vendors are all working together. This is as close to total cooperation and everyone pushing in the same direction as you can possibly get."
Via's Apollo Pro133 chipset was introduced in Taiwan last week. At the same time, various motherboard companies have also signed up to support the Via chipset. Many PC OEMs are ready to go with the technology in systems as well, and as soon as next month there could be PC-133-based PCs on the shelves, Hays said.
"We can't develop our chipset fast enough as OEMs and DRAM vendors want to get this technology into that market as soon as possible," Hays said. Via is also working on a double data rate (DDR) SDRAM chipset that could be available by the end of this year.
Steve Cullen, principle analyst at Cahners In-Stat Group, Scottsdale, Ariz., said the key to PC-133 is having sufficient chipsets in the market for top-tier OEMs PC supply.
"(PC-133) has a lot of potential because it doesn't cost any more than current PC-100 parts and is basically just a die shrink," Cullen said. "With Intel not likely to support it with chipsets, the immediate concern is where these chipsets will come from and the only other place is from the Taiwanese."
Other chipset makers including Acer Labs Inc. (ALI), Reliance Computer Corp. (RCC), Standard Microsystems Corp. (SMC), Opti Corp. and Silicon Integrated Systems (SIS) all said they will support PC-133 in one way or another as well.
Intel Corp., Santa Clara, Calif., still has no plans to develop a PC-133 chipset but believes a transition period will be needed this year. A spokesman for Intel said it will be up to the OEMs to decide whether to use Rambus DRAM or Intel's SDRAM Rambus In-line Memory Module (SRIMM) that offers a bridge between PC-100 SDRAM and R-DRAM.
"If you combine all the other non-Intel chipsets together they become a viable part of the market," said George Iwanyc, senior industry analyst at Dataquest, San Jose. "If they have a common front and position PC-133 they could have a lot of impact in the market."
Some OEMs are already running 100MHz Intel chipsets at 133MHz and the solution seems to work, although Intel would certainly not endorse it, said David Bondurant, vice president of marketing at Enhanced Memory Systems Inc. (EMS) "OEMs are designing our PC-133 HSDRAMs into systems that will be shipping this year," he added.
OEMs, especially the largest ones, require multiple sources of supply for most components, especially memory, Bondurant said. EMS is in a joint development agreement with IBM to produce high-speed memory devices for the post-PC-133 generations, he added.
While Bondurant would not comment about his knowledge of IBM's immediate plans for alternatives to Rambus, he did confirm as genuine an internal EMS document obtained by Electronic News which discussed IBM's decision to choose PC-133 for certain systems, based on specific technical issues such as latency.
Support seems strong across all traditional DRAM suppliers. DRAM vendors said last week that they plan to have PC-133 in the market this year as well as direct Rambus DRAM (D-RDRAM) chips.
Mosel Vitelic last week said it will enter the PC-133 fray with 64Mbit and 128Mbit SDRAMs.
Mosel Vitelic said it will target high-end PCs, servers and workstations with its DRAMs. Mosel Vitelic said it is working with Via to bring its DRAM to these target markets this year.
Bob Fusco, product marketing manager for DRAM at Hitachi America Inc., said PC-133 requires little infrastructure since it is not a complete technology transition. "The DRAM guys are ready to rock ‘n' roll and basically we are just waiting for the chipsets to be delivered," said Fusco.
Fusco noted that OEMs have expressed considerable interest in PC-133 and are asking the right questions such as what price premiums the technology will carry. "Some people were wishing this would go away but I think it's too appropriate for the market to ignore," he said.
Hitachi is working with Via, ALI and RCC for chipsets that go along with its PC-133 DRAMs.
Hyundai Electronics America, a division of Hyundai Electronics Limited, is moving to develop PC-133 and believes the technology's success will depend on the penetration of Rambus DRAM into the market.
Mark Ellsberry, vice president of marketing at Hyundai, noted Intel may roll out Camino chipsets with PC-133 backside buses on the chip to support the PC-133 SDRAM.
Via does not have a Rambus license and has no plans to develop Rambus chipsets, unlike ALI, Taipei, Taiwan, which has concrete plans to do Rambus chipsets but has not yet committed to doing PC-133 chipsets.
"We target our roadmap to our OEM requirements and we are certainly getting questions on whether or not we will provide support for PC-133," said Nancy Hartsoch, vice president of sales and marketing for ALI. "It will be the IBM's and the other big guys that make us develop the chipset or not."
Hartsoch said there does appear to be an opportunity for PC-133 SDRAM but it depends on whether OEMs will want to adopt the technology.
OEMs have yet to publicize their commitment to one technology or another mostly because they are afraid to tip their hat to their competition. Last week, for example, an IBM spokesperson confirmed to Bloomberg News that the company would use PC-133 in some of its PCs this year, but later in the week back-peddled and said that the decision had not been made.
IBM is particularly sensitive to releasing such information because it also has agreements to supply the Rambus DRAMs, which are strongly backed by Intel, another major supplier to and customer of IBM. For example, Intel is a big customer for the Intellistation workstations and insists that they use Rambus.
"Use of this technology relates to system pricing, so just how the product lines are segmented and just how that information is released is always proprietary," said an IBM engineer involved in the evaluation of PC-133 and Rambus. IBM test engineers provided Electronic News with written results of technical evaluations and recommendations regarding the two technologies as confirmation of IBM's decision to have more than one memory technology available in PCs this year and for future generations.
"We believe PC-133 is the best solution for some systems right now," the IBM source said last week in interview with Electronic News. "This doesn't mean that we won't use Rambus, we definitely will, or that we won't build Rambus. Look at it this way: if we use it, we build it and if we build it, we use it."
IBM's ongoing relationship with NanYa plastics could reconcile IBM's need and commitment to build Rambus. Also, statements by IBM Chief Executive Louis V. Gerstner Jr.last month that IBM needs to limit its risk in DRAMs hint to this.
IBM has been transferring DRAM technology to Nan Ya since last year, according to IBM announcements issued earlier this year. Sources at IBM confirmed again last week that NanYa would build Rambus DRAMs for IBM, although a corporate spokesperson did not respond to questions about the subject.
IBM's license to produce Rambus DRAMs does allow it to use any foundry source it wants, including NanYa, confirmed Subodh Toprani, vice president at Rambus. The move does not mean that IBM will not make Rambus chips in its own foundries and could mean that in addition to parts needed for its own use, IBM might see demand for Rambus chips that will be built by Nan Ya and sold under IBM's label.
According to the majority of the sources contacted for this story, the issue really is not about whether Rambus or PC- 133 should or will be used, but if OEMs can chart their own course for PC design. Intel's decision to lock the market into a proprietary technology, however, may have backfired.
"Intel gave us a tremendous opportunity when it decided to no longer support socket 7 chipsets and that increased our market share and revenues tremendously," said Via's Hays. "Now we see the same situation with PC-133 where Intel is following a different roadmap and customers are not really accepting theirs but accepting ours. Because of this we are getting a tremendous amount of design activity."
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