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

To: richard surckla who wrote (35107)	11/23/1999 9:46:00 PM
From: Don Green	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 93625

A Rambus Reality (Nov 22,1999) (I am not sure if this was already posted)??? Camino, Rambus-based PCs roll By Peter Brown Las Vegas -- The wait is over. Direct Rambus DRAM (RDRAM)-based PCs in 1999 have become a reality. Here at Fall Comdex '99, RDRAM has made its initial mark on the computer industry, having survived two delays in the accompanying Camino 820 chipset from Intel Corp. as well as stinging criticism from some DRAM vendors and market analysts. "(Comdex) has turned out to be rather prophetic for Rambus," said Subodh Toprani, vice president of business development at Rambus Inc., Mountain View, Calif. "We have now RDRAM in systems that are shipping and are available today. This is an exciting time for us and what we have been waiting for quite some time." Dell Computer Corp. and Compaq Computer Corp. are the first OEMs to roll out PCs with Intel's 820 Camino chipset and Rambus-based memory. Rambus inside its booth at Comdex was demonstrating a Compaq Deskpro workstation running benchmarks. The Deskpro EN series PCs with the 820 chipset, 733MHz Pentium III processor and 128Mbytes of RDRAM are priced at $2,579, including a monitor. Dell Computer has already presented a roadmap that includes PCs ranging in price from $1,899 to $2,999, Toprani said. This is far less than many analysts had expected the price to be. Most expected Rambus-based systems to be at the $2,500 level or up. Other PC makers are expecting similar prices. Hewlett-Packard Co. said it would be offering 733MHz Intel Pentium III processor-based systems with 128Mbytes RDRAM, priced between $1,399 and $2,480. HP's PCs are slated to begin shipping sometime in December. A spokesman at Gateway Inc. said it plans to start shipping its Rambus systems sometime next year, but did not have prices for those systems initially. "This is it. This will begin the true test of where Rambus goes in the market," said Steve Cullen, principal analyst at Cahners In-Stat Group. "How the market reacts will dictate where PC OEMs target their roadmaps. Will consumers want this new technology and pay a little bit more for PCs, or will PC-133 and the like dominate next year?" That is the big question that has yet to be answered. Rambus is already presenting benchmarks that compare the RDRAM-enabled Compaq system to a Micron PC with the Via chipset and PC-133 SDRAM. The Compaq machine was 10 percent faster than the PC-133 system, according to Toprani. One of the more interesting aspects to the Rambus systems is that there appears to be no additional fan required in the systems. Toprani said in systems from Dell and Compaq with Rambus inside, there was no need for an additional fan, despite what some in the market have said about the heat problems with RDRAM. Also, the Compaq systems employ 16-chip RIMMs instead of the 8-chip RIMMs some were expecting to see, Toprani added. This will allow for greater amounts of memory in two RIMM motherboard systems. PC OEMs using 16-chip RIMMs should still be able to crank up the levels of memory by using 128Mbit and 256Mbit RDRAMs in these RIMMs. To enable this, DRAM manufacturers are ramping up their RDRAM supply to fulfill the need if Rambus PCs take off. Toshiba America Electronic Components Inc. is predicting by 2001, 50 percent of its DRAM output will be RDRAM and it is already increasing its ramp of 128Mbit chips, said Douglas Crane, member of the technical staff of memory applications for Toshiba's memory business unit. "We think that 128Mbit will be dominant this year and easily into next year," said Crane. "Next year, 256Mbit parts will be widely available and what we will probably be shipping the most." Samsung Semiconductor Inc., which has been one of the most firm Rambus supporters, also is planning to ramp up its RDRAM supply for December and early into next year. Other DRAM vendors have yet to publicly commit to ramping up their RDRAM supply. Micron, for one, has not rolled out any RDRAMs, saying it is waiting for customer demand to crop up before manufacturing the devices. In other Rambus/Comdex news, Agilent Technologies Inc. has pledged its allegiance to delivering high-speed memory test capabilities for Rambus PC ramps. Along with this, Apacer Memory America Inc., Melco Inc., Molex Inc. and Kingston Technology Co. all announced RIMM modules targeted at supporting Intel's 820 chipset.