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Technology Stocks : Rambus (RMBS) - Eagle or Penguin -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: jetcityrandy who wrote (22167)	6/8/1999 10:27:00 PM
From: Don Green	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 93625

Randy This is 6/23/98 57.500 9,892,600 I was talking about.. We might see another one of those type volumes days.. soon, if Rambus can hold up a few more days and rally and close up in the 95 range. It will certainly make headlines.. Sure seems to be a lot of Pacific Northwesterners on this chat site One day we may have to meet and have a party at Bill's house. regards Don

To: jetcityrandy who wrote (22167)	6/9/1999 12:18:00 AM
From: Dave B	Respond to of 93625

Here's the reason volume was almost 10M on 6/23/98: Compaq, Dell to use Direct RDRAM in '99 PCs. (Rambus DRAM) (Company Business and Marketing) Electronic Buyers' News, June 22, 1998 n1114 p3(1) Author MacLellan, Andrew Full Text Silicon Valley -- Two leading computer makers have agreed to incorporate Direct Rambus DRAM in their upcoming platforms, lending momentum to developer Rambus Inc.'s plan to populate the PC with its high-speed memory interface. Compaq Computer Corp. and Dell Computer Corp. have each confirmed they will include the Rambus design in their systems which observers expect to hit the market shortly after Direct RDRAM makes its debut in 1999. The chips will yield 800-MHz clock speeds and deliver a total bandwidth of 1.6 Gbytes/s, according to Rambus, Mountain View, Calif. Compaq and Dell did not indicate which PC models will be the first to adopt the Rambus interface. Though neither company could be reached for comment, they were apparently swayed by the systems-level approach taken by Rambus and design partner Intel Corp., and by the assurance of industrywide parts compatibility. Dell is supporting Direct RDRAM "because memory compatibility is a critical customer issue that Rambus and Intel are addressing," said Jay Bell, vice president and senior fellow at Dell, in a statement. "The decision to make Direct RDRAMs compatible by design gives us and aftermarket customers the ability to swap memory modules from different manufacturers without problems." Having achieved first silicon in April, the Rambus memory interface has entered the test phase, with Intel conducting system-level tests using chips manufactured by Toshiba Corp. and LG Semicon Co. Ltd. "This is probably best characterized as the last intermediate step we take before entering the chipset debug-and-development cycle," said Peter D. MacWilliams, an Intel fellow and the company's director of platform architecture. "We were originally scheduled to have first silicon by the end of the second quarter and our first test platform up by the end of this quarter, so we're right on track." Intel will spend the next several months running multichip Rambus modules, or RIMMs, on a test platform to check for EMI, thermal disparities, and signal integrity, according to MacWilliams. For example, while Rambus as a memory subsystem will consume less power than existing synchronous DRAM, individual chips may run hotter when continually accessed during operation and will likely require a heat spreader or another means of heat dissipation, MacWilliams said. "We intend to come up with a thermal solution that supports Rambus parts that is not substantially different from what's used by SDRAM in today's platform-level solutions," he said. Initial test batches will consist of 64- and 72-Mbit ICs. Volume production within the industry is expected to be split between 64- and 72-Mbit and emerging 128- and 144-Mbit densities, according to Subodh Toprani, vice president and general manager of Rambus' Logic Products division. The odd densities include extra pins for bit parity and error-correction coding. Countering widespread speculation that its manufacturers have had difficulty keeping die and module costs under control, Toprani said Direct RDRAM chips will maintain a premium of less than 5% over PC-100 SDRAM devices. "We have active programs under way with leading DRAM companies to reduce the die cost in the second half of 1999," he said. Given its PC OEMs' support, Intel said it hopes not to have to ship large volumes of an interim Rambus architecture, which the company first detailed in February. The so-called synchronous RIMM module, which will provide backward-compatibility with PC-100 SDRAM, was pitched in an effort to cover customers if Rambus chip volumes were too small to meet demand. "If the number of platforms initially available exceeds the number of Rambus parts initially available, then we need something to help manage the transition," MacWilliams said. "But in a best-case scenario, enough Rambus vendors make enough Rambus parts that we'll have plenty for all of the available sockets." Copyright 1998 CMP Media Inc. Full Text COPYRIGHT 1998 CMP Publications, Inc.