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

To: richard surckla who wrote (36582)	1/18/2000 12:28:00 AM
From: Estephen	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 93625

WSJ today.... January 18, 2000 Six Chip Makers Form Group To Develop New Technology By RUSSELL FLANNERY Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL Facing rising product-development costs, six of the world's largest semiconductor manufacturers said they would join forces to develop new technology for the most common type of memory chip used inside personal computers. The six are Intel Corp. and Micron Technology Inc. of the U.S.; NEC Corp. of Japan; Samsung Electronics Co. and Hyundai Electronics Industries Co. of South Korea; and Infineon Technologies AG, a unit of Germany's Siemens AG. The group-excluding Intel, which mainly makes microprocessors-accounts for about 70% of the global market for dynamic random access memory, or DRAM. That market reached $21 billion last year, according to research firm Dataquest Inc. "We have to pour lots of money into developing next-generation DRAM," said Simon Hong, the market communications manager in Seoul for Hyundai MicroElectronics, the semiconductor unit of Hyundai Electronics. The unusually broad alliance should be "more cost effective" than going it alone, he said. A statement by the six companies vaguely referred to a goal of developing "high-performance advanced DRAM technology" that would be in the marketplace in 2003. The group said it would provide information to facilitate the development of related PC components such as a chipset, which acts as an intermediary between DRAM and the central processing unit, or CPU. The market for CPUs, which do the computational heavy lifting inside a PC, is about 80% controlled by Intel under its brands such as "Pentium" and "Celeron." Consumer interest for high-performance PCs that provide advanced multimedia and graphics is pushing Intel to develop higher-speed CPUs that require more powerful yet affordable DRAM chips. The announcement of the alliance follows uncertainties surrounding Intel's much ballyhooed chipsets, based on technology developed by Rambus Inc., that were supposed to help create a jump in PC performance. "The entire DRAM and PC industry has suffered from delays and confusion about Rambus," said Don Floyd, regional semiconductor-industry analyst at Credit Lyonnais Securities in Taipei. By working on technology that will be in the market a full three years from now, the alliance is trying to look beyond the current battle lines of industry competition. Each member of the alliance will commit a design team to the project, which will be overseen by a senior technology committee, said a Samsung official, adding that different roles haven't been set. No budget figures were available.

To: richard surckla who wrote (36582)	1/18/2000 5:15:00 AM
From: John Walliker	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 93625

richard, From the link you quoted: Fujitsu Limited and Fujitsu Microelectronics, Inc. (FMI) today introduced samples of the company's new 64 Megabit Fast Cycle RAM (FCRAM(TM)) with Double Data Rate (DDR) SDRAM interface. Designed for graphics and multimedia applications, the FCRAM features high speeds and low power consumption. ... The [simulation] model utilizes Denali's Specification of Memory Architecture (SOMA) language to support the full-timing, full-function simulation needed by system designers to verify complex designs. This device is NOT intended for PC main memory. Fujitsu do NOT expect system implementation to be straightforward. The real fun with DDR will come when motherboard manufacturers try to support multiple memory modules from different vendors. If the same quality standards are applied to DDR systems as have been applied to Rambus the cost differential will be much less than some people here seem to believe. John