Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

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

To: J_W who wrote (24285)	7/8/1999 9:38:00 PM
From: Tony Viola	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 93625

Jim, first, a warning to the thread that this is mostly about EMI, and may give the reader a headache. It almost always gives me one. Intel refers to new FCC Open Box regulations. I have looked but have not been able to find out what these new regulations are and the impact on the PC industry. Could you ask your EMI testing friends about this? I think what Intel is referring to is a new way to declare your product as compliant with the FCC, CE (Euro community), etc. First, the old way, which you can still use. The electronics system builder, call them the boxmaker, designs his PC, e.g., puts it in a case, debugs it, and then sends an early production unit off to a lab that specializes in making the EMI (electromagnetic interference) measurements. If the box passes, the boxmaker gets to put labels, or stickers on all units he makes, which indicate he passed. The problem with this was that every time the boxmaker changed a chip, or motherboard, or cable in the system, he was supposed to send a unit back to the lab. You can appreciate that companies like Dell and Compaq have hundreds of different configurations, which are updated all the time. There is no way they want to have to ship a steady stream of boxes off to the EMI guy for every new config. At a point in time, some component makers...chip, mobo, cable, started to get EMI blessing on their products. Then, the FCC made a decision to allow the boxmakers to put a label on their product declaring it to be compliant by reason that all the components inside the box were compliant individually. No shipping of a completed box off to an EMI test house required! I know that Intel is a leader in the "let's get all of our components EMI compliant" crusade. I also know quite a few component vendors that don't seem to give a damn. Call the reason Intel's vast hoard of money that allows them to spend extra bucks on testing and better packaging, to pass emi, allowing them to sell more product to savvy boxmakers that are more than willing to let Intel do the EMI suppression work. I don't know. To the Rambus design, with differential pair wires for clock (and signal?), and the terminated transmission lines, and, that other gizmo where the clocks are purposely skewed, these all help minimize emi a lot. Looks like Intel and Rambus are working together to end up with all FCC certified-for-emi parts. That last one, I forget the name of it, where they skew clocks, only at some portions of the cycle, or period...sound like purposeful clock jitter generation. Hope they know what they're doing. Clock jitter is a long time enemy in high speed systems. Hope I didn't cause too many headaches, but there's always the next button! Tony