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To: Ibexx who wrote (86895)	8/14/1999 7:34:00 PM
From: Paul Engel	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 186894

Ibexx - Re: "Bob Stansky reportedly exited (or trimmed severely) his INTC position some months ago - a grave mistake, IMO - and this could be attributable to Magellan's mediocre performance this year (less than 7% YTD)." Magellan is only UP 7% ? That isn't so great - but it least it isn't DOWN ! Aren't their top 10 holding reported on a regular basis ? Paul

To: Ibexx who wrote (86895)	8/31/1999 10:44:00 AM
From: greenspirit	Respond to of 186894

Ibexx and Rambus investors, article...Micron tests Rambus pricing with samples at $45 August 31, 1999 ELECTRONIC ENGINEERING TIMES : PALM SPRINGS, CALIF. - The first PCs using Direct Rambus memory technology are expected to debut here this week at the Intel Developer Forum. But lingering questions over the cost of using RDRAM may hinder the chips' full-scale deployment. Claiming Rambus prices will stay high for some time in a fragmenting memory market, Micron Technology Inc. will announce today that it is sampling both Direct Rambus and competing double-data-rate synchronous DRAM chips. Meanwhile, Rambus chief executive officer Geoff Tate said in an interview that the company is addressing issues on several fronts to cut Direct RDRAM costs to just a 10 percent premium over SDRAM by the end of next year. Current RDRAM prices are at least twice those of standard SDRAM. Jeff Mailloux, DRAM marketing manager for Micron, doesn't see RDRAM's premium over mainstream SDRAM falling below 50 percent anytime soon. Several factors are keeping upward pressure on prices, Mailloux said. RDRAM's die size is about 25 percent larger than SDRAM's, and RDRAM chips need more expensive packaging. Inadequate testers have also boosted overall production cost. "The biggest concern among customers is the cost," said Mailloux. "I don't realistically see how we can sell [RDRAM chips] for less than a 50 percent premium anytime soon." Tate of Rambus agreed that cost will be a big factor in the transition to RDRAM. "We are hearing about pretty significant Rambus price premiums, " he said. "And negotiations between PC makers and DRAM companies have been intense." To whittle the premium, he said, RDRAM developers are working on reducing the die penalty to 10 percent. Further, he said, as memory vendors travel the production learning curve for the parts and as testers improve, RDRAM chips that run at full speed will become more plentiful. Packaging "is the most difficult area" facing Rambus, Tate said. Currently, a micro ball-grid array (BGA) package costs more than twice what a thin small-outline package does. "Many people believe that chip-scale packaging will move to the wafer level, with bumps created at the wafer-processing stage," he said. "We were part of a seminar on this topic in Tokyo recently, and the consensus was that wafer-scale packaging was the way to go" over the long term. In the meantime, Rambus and DRAM makers are investigating alternative chip-scale packaging technologies. NEC, Toshiba and Micron Technology have created packages that differ from the micro-BGA package licensed from Tessera Corp. Micron's packaging approach wire-bonds the die to a tiny printed-circuit board that uses a BGA package to mount on a proprietary module. "The lower packaging cost is significant in terms of materials, manufacturing and licensing [the Tessera technology]," said Mailloux. Only four vendors are now validated to produce 400-MHz RDRAM (double-data-rate capabilities push bandwidth to 800 Mbits/second/pin). Four more chip companies expect to receive validation soon. Only 30 to 40 percent of today's good dice test out at the full 400 MHz, said Tate. With experience, he expects that to improve next year, with a favorable impact on price. For now, Micron is sampling 128- and 144-Mbit RDRAM chips on a 0.18-micron process at $45 each in 1,000-unit quantities. Mailloux said high costs may lead some to consider alternatives like DDR DRAM, which the company is sampling in 64-Mbit densities. "Most of our initial interest for DDR chips is in servers," he said. "OEMs are concerned about the cost of Rambus where they will [use] gigabytes of memory." Micron has produced a dual-processor server motherboard using an in-house-developed chip set as a reference design for its DDR parts.