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

To: unclewest who wrote (28199)	8/31/1999 12:16:00 PM
From: Tony Viola	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 93625

unclewest, where'd you see that the speeches would be avail. tomorrow, vs. today? Tony

To: unclewest who wrote (28199)	8/31/1999 12:16:00 PM
From: Michael Gaudet	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 93625

Perhaps this is causing today's downdrift: From Semiconductor business News: Hyundai samples 128-Mbit DDR SDRAM; volume to come in Q4 A service of Semiconductor Business News, CMP Media Inc. Story posted 11 a.m. EST/8 a.m., PST, 8/31/99 SAN JOSE -- Hyundai Electronics America Inc. today announced sampling of its next-generation 128-megabit Double Data Rate (DDR) SDRAMs. Volume production of the 128-Mbit devices will begin in the fourth quarter of this year, once its 64-Mbit DDR chips reach volume ramp, Hyundai said. The DDR components are offered in 200- and 266-MHz speed grades, and they are fully compliant with the PC1600 and PC2100 specifications, providing bandwidth per module of 1.6 and and 2.1 gigabytes per second, respectively. This helps make DDR SDRAM an attractive solutio, in both price and performance, for high-speed computing. "DDR has become the de facto standard for high-end graphics applications where the very highest bandwidth is essential," said Mark Ellsberry, vice president of marketing for Hyundai's Semiconductor Division in San Jose. "In the PC space, multiple chip sets are becoming available that support DDR." Systems can be easily migrated to Hyundai's new DDR SDRAMs because they use the same infrastructure currently being used to produce SDRAMs, Hyundai said. DDR uses the same thin small outline package (TSOP) technology, driver types, and standard module technology as PC100 SDRAMs. Initial pricing for Hyundai's 128-Mb DDR is $21 in quantities of 1,000. DDR SDRAM is expected to achieve price parity with PC100 SDRAM in the second half of 2000.

To: unclewest who wrote (28199)	8/31/1999 12:18:00 PM
From: Glenda King	Respond to of 93625

Sorry. info already posted.

To: unclewest who wrote (28199)	8/31/1999 12:19:00 PM
From: Barry Grossman	Respond to of 93625

uncle, This was out yesterday but perhaps adds to the FUD. Just 9:15 am here on the left coast. No news out of the desert yet. Barry eetimes.com IDF: Micron, Rambus address DRAM cost issues By Will Wade and David Lammers EE Times (08/30/99, 1:55 p.m. EDT) 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. DDR DRAM technology is similar to SDRAM, thereby simplifying every phase from R&D to manufacturing to test. Mailloux said about 70 percent of the manufacturing stage for DDR chips is the same as for basic SDRAM. Further, he said, the dice are the exact same size, and testing is not significantly different. ?In the long run, DDR should cost about the same as SDRAM,? he said. ?We're seeing about a 10 percent premium now.? While most SDRAM chips are tested on 32- and 64-site heads, which offer rapid throughput, current RDRAM test heads hold just eight chips. And the test systems cost several million dollars. But the next wave in RDRAM test systems will test 64 chips in parallel . Tate made the bold claim that test costs for Rambus chips will be at parity with costs for PC 133 SDRAMs by late next year. For now, RDRAMs' premium may squeeze them out of consumer PCs, where SDRAMs are expected to dominate. And DDR appears to be the better fit for high-end servers. That could relegate Rambus to the limited market for performance desktops and perhaps to low-end servers and workstations, said Mailloux.