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

To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (35952)	12/18/1999 7:28:00 PM
From: Don Green	Respond to of 93625

Direct RDRAM a no-show in mobile PCs? 12/18 00:51 EST Dec. 17, 1999 (Electronic Buyers News - CMP via COMTEX) -- The adoption of Direct Rambus DRAM across a meaningful number of PC platforms next year is looking doubtful, as the majority of desktop and notebook PCs appear destined to rely on a mainstream SDRAM interface. Sources last week said Intel Corp. has pulled the plug on Greendale, the company's first mobile chipset to support Direct Rambus memory, and through 2000 will instead look to devices that interface with PC100 and PC133 SDRAM. The cancellation notice was included in a late-November roadmap distributed to OEMs, but gives no reason for the decision. In a section of the presentation that details Intel's perspective on the mobile market, the company indicated that its notebook-PC efforts will include a "product mix optimized for SDRAM." An Intel spokesman declined to comment on the cancellation, repeating the Santa Clara, Calif., company's policy of refusing to discuss work-in-progress. He said Intel still expects to see a mobile Direct Rambus chip come to market in 2000 or 2001, and added that the company will support all customer needs for mobile Direct RDRAM. Some Rambus licensees said they were not surprised by the news because of lingering thermal and cost issues associated with the technology. "I never expected to see Rambus do anything in the mobile environment in 2000 anyway," said Will Mulhern, product marketing manager for advanced DRAMs at NEC Electronics Inc., Santa Clara. "It's just not there yet." Others said it's doubtful the Rambus interface will ever penetrate the notebook-PC sector. "In terms of the mobile [PC market], we have always thought that because of the thermal issues with Rambus-that the RIMM runs so hot-that it would never be a fit in the mobile [space]," said Sherry Garber, an analyst at Semico Research Corp., Phoenix. Specifically, the Intel roadmap notes that the mobile version of the Solano-2, an integrated graphics chipset, will be introduced late in the third quarter and will enter mainstream volume production in the fourth quarter of 2000. That chipset, which will include 100- and 133-MHz frontside-bus options, will, for now, exclusively feature PC100 and PC133 SDRAM memory interfaces. Industry sources could not say which graphics core will be built into the Solano-2, but the chipset is believed to feature an option to an external AGP2X or AGP4X graphics connection. In the desktop-PC segment, Intel's commitment to Direct RDRAM also seems dubious. In a series of suggested PC configurations designed to ship during the first half of 2000, the roadmap slates only the highest-end skew to contain Direct RDRAM-and the highest-speed PC800 version at that. That may make it difficult for Rambus memory to meet various industry estimates calling for the technology to carve out a 10% to 20% niche in 2000 and account for nearly half the market in 2001. "My customers have ramped way down," NEC's Mulhern said. "Unless something miraculous happens in the first quarter of 2000, I think you'll see Rambus relegated to desktop workstations and high-end enthusiast PCs, and neither of those are exactly a big part of the market." Sources believe the Intel roadmap's SDRAM-oriented focus is rooted in cost concerns, given that Direct RDRAM still carries a premium several times that of conventional PC100 and PC133 SDRAM. The roadmap predicts that overall DRAM prices and demand will likely decline in the first half of next year, but increase in the latter half. Rambus Inc., the Mountain View, Calif.-based company that designed the interface, said Direct RDRAM is uniquely suited for mobile applications because of its several power-saving modes, including standby and nap. However, critics have charged that these modes, while saving power, come at the expense of system performance because of the latency issues associated with powering the Rambus chips back up. Additionally, persistent pricing concerns have apparently made Rambus' technical advantages less compelling. Rambus executives also recently announced a strategy shift toward communications-centric devices, although the company said it will continue to fully support PC products. -Additional reporting by Andrew MacLellan