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

To: unclewest who wrote (27294)	8/20/1999 7:02:00 AM
From: Orion	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 93625

Fujitsu is a licencee of Rambus for RDRAM and rambus RIMM module. They are apparently very interested in high margin products, ... RDRAM IS a high margin product. This is also why all producers are interested in Rambus, for once they'll be able to report profits for their Ram Division... bloomberg.com Technology News Fri, 20 Aug 1999, 6:32am EDT Fujitsu to Spend 40% More Than Planned to Boost Chip Capacity This Year By Miki Takeyama with translation from Peter Poole-Wilson Fujitsu to Spend 40% More Than Planned on Memory Chip Business Tokyo, Aug. 20 (Bloomberg) -- Fujitsu Ltd., Japan's fourth- largest computer chipmaker, said it will invest 40 percent more money in its microchip business in the year to March 2000 than it had initially planned to boost output of more sophisticated and profitable chips. Fujitsu, whose shares have more than doubled to record levels this year, will spend 90 billion yen ($803 million) on its chip business this fiscal year compared with its initial plan of 65 billion yen, said company spokeswoman Naomi Ogawa. The extra spending will be used to increase production capacity so the company can meet surging demand for flash memory computer chips -- used in portable products such as mobile phones -- and logic chips used as the brains in household digital appliances. Orders for such devices are so strong Fujitsu's chip business may return to the black this fiscal year, Ogawa said. ``At the beginning of the fiscal year we were looking at an operating loss of 10 billion yen on our chip business for the year, but now it looks like we could make a little bit of money,' said Ogawa. Under President Naoyuki Akikusa, who took over in June last year, Fujitsu is trying to steer away from low-margin or unprofitable businesses such as computer-memory chips, which contributed to its loss in the year to March 31. The company will concentrate instead on more profitable and sophisticated devices such as flash memory chips used in mobile phones and other portable electronics. The fresh money will go towards tooling up four Fujitsu factories in Fukushima Prefecture and Iwate Prefecture, northern Japan, and its Gresham factory in the U.S. state of Oregon. Tokyo-based Fujitsu, Japan's largest computer maker, until now has been making dynamic random-access memory chips -- the memory chips most commonly used in PCs -- at its Gresham and Iwate factories. It's reducing its production of DRAMs and will use its new investment to reconfigure production lines there to make flash memories and logic chips for products such as camcorders. Fujitsu's joint venture in Japan with Advanced Micro Devices Inc. of the U.S. is already the world's dominant maker of flash memory chips. Flash memories retain their information even when their power source is turned off, making them ideal for use in portable products such as cellular phones and hand-held computers. Fujitsu lost money in the year ended March 31 and posted earnings declines each of the previous two years, in part because of losses on DRAM chips. Fujitsu said earlier this month it will stop making DRAMs in Japan by the end of 2001 as it shifts to more profitable types of chips. Fujitsu shares rose as much as 40 yen to 3,320 yen in early- afternoon trading. The stock reached a record 3,680 yen on Aug. 3.

To: unclewest who wrote (27294)	8/20/1999 9:08:00 AM
From: Dan3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 93625

Re: people are willing to pay addtional $200 to $500 for rambus Well, that's the rambus hope. We are just going to have to see what the market finally decides. I'm not so sure people are going to be willing to pay even $100 more for rambus - especially buyers of internet server farms, who led the Linux commercial movement partly due to their refusal to pay $100 for NT. If rambus really does offer noticeable improvement in video performance, I'd expect that the workstation market will pay that delta. Dan