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

To: Orion who wrote (30627)	9/25/1999 7:34:00 AM
From: KM	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 93625

I'm sure the analysts don't want to kiss it goodbye. What an embarrassment and they'd have some explaining to do to clients their firms have put into Rambus. I've been reading all these engineering posts with great interest, even though I don't know a circuit board from a Ouija board. Carl has really made some compelling arguments and I would love to see some refutations if there are any. Zeev?

To: Orion who wrote (30627)	9/25/1999 7:01:00 PM
From: Bilow	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 93625

Hi Orion; I love the part in the story where he says: hundreds of thousands of computers that are set to debut next week and in the following weeks may have the technical problem, but he expects them to ship anyway. To an engineer, this sort of comment is nothing short of hilarious. It's like he was talking about an article he was writing, and he is going to publish it before the deadline even though it still may have a few minor problems. Minor problems are what destroy box makers. Eventually, they all ship a model(s) with some sort of minor problem, and end up with an incredibly expensive repair problem, a consumer revolt, and a reduction in business for years. After having one of these happen to them, the typical box maker will make sure that it never, ever, ever happens again. So they test new models extensively, putting them through far more rigorous conditions than the average consumer will. I know this, I've worked with Compaq, after they bought a design from a company I was at. The test facilities at these companies are barbaric. If you ever saw your little brother tear up your sister's Barbie dolls, you have an idea of what goes on in these testing facilities. Computers, monitors, diskdrives and keyboards are run in rooms with the ambient temperature controlled to be either very hot or very cold. Keyboards are pounded by robots that type harder than I do, 24 hours per day for months. These guys are vicious. They have to be. There is no way that they can test all the possible computer parts being assembled into all the possible computers, and then sent to all the possible customers, who then run all the possible software on them and add all the possible memory configurations or add-ons to them. Modern, general purpose, computers are built to be bullet proof. This is because they are general purpose computers - the user can get in there and screw around with them. The same does not apply to the game box industry, which is able to control what happens to their boxes on a much higher level. They sometimes even control the software that runs on them, for instance. The problem with RDRAM is that it just doesn't leave much room for error on the parts of too many different parts. The technology was over done to the point where there is too little margin left for deviance from specification. Right now, there is huge, immense, enormous, pressure being placed on a few guys in the "qual" departments at a few box makers. People are probably being asked to cut back a notch, and let stuff slide by. Maybe some stuff will ship. We will then have to wait and see what the word is on reliability. The public won't know that for a long time, and the really long-term reliability of this technology, but I've been in the business for a while, and I know what to expect. When you send thirty four 800MHz (effective) signals to 25 chips, through six socket connectors (i.e. two per RIMM), you are not just asking for trouble, you've married its daughter. When you decide that, in addition, you are going to mass produce this technology using standard CMOS DRAM processes, you know it is time for you to get a job in sales instead of engineering. Should be fun to watch. -- Carl