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Politics : Ask Michael Burke -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: gnuman who wrote (77163)	3/7/2000 7:45:00 PM
From: Don Lloyd	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 132070

Gene - <<...I am interested in the Sony PlayStation 2. We know it uses 64MB of RDRAM. Do you have any knowledge of the price of these devices and/or the fee's Rambus collects for them? How many consoles does Sony expect to ship this year?>> FWIW, CNBC seemed to imply on Monday that Sony would sell the PS2 hardware well below cost, presumably to try to lock out high end competitors with a pre-emptive strike. While this is mostly due to an expensive advanced processor, the two(?) RDRAMS inside may also have less stringent pricing requirements in the near term as well. Regards, Don

To: gnuman who wrote (77163)	3/8/2000 8:19:00 AM
From: Steve Lee	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 132070

I've seen estimates the PC industry consumes 500 million DRAM's per quarter You need 8 SDRAM or DDR-RAM chips on a module. Rambus doesn't have this requirement. Hence you need a lot more DRAM chips for non RDRAM memory to get the equivalent memory capacity. When comparing numbers of chips you need to make that adjustment. So 10 million RDRAM chips for the quarter which is nearly over when when the 5 went into "full production" is not bad. And don't forget Samsung is building another line with a view to doubling RDRAM volumes, Infineon is building another plant and Microns ramp is only just about to start this month. So on a volume basis, RDRAM will be a significant proportion of RAM production. It's dollar market share will be even greater due to the higher prices of RDRAM.

To: gnuman who wrote (77163)	3/8/2000 12:20:00 PM
From: Steve Lee	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 132070

Re: I've seen estimates the PC industry consumes 500 million DRAM's per quarter. If we ignore all DRAM's other than in DIMM's/SIMM's there are at least 360 million DRAM's per quarter. According to my calculations that gives Rambus less than 3% of units in the PC market for this quarter." Look at this - 13 to 15 million units per month from just 2 of the RDRAM manufacturers due to "projected surge in demand". That's quite a growth rate from this Q's shipments of 10 million units. And don't forget Tosh's PlayStation RDRAM is not included in these newest production figures, neither is production from Micron, NEC or Infineon. So we could be looking at 300 million units a quarter by the end of the year - more than half of your 500 units figure. "South Korean chipmakers Samsung Electronics and Hyundai Electronics are planning to expand production of Rambus DRAMs (RDRAMs) in response to a projected surge in demand from makers of high-performance PCs and game machines. Samsung plans to hike monthly RDRAM production fivefold to 10 million units late this year as it expands its production facilities in Kihung and Hwasung, Kyonggi Province. In addition, the company will focus on 288Mb RDRAMs, or twice the capacity of existing products. Meanwhile, Hyundai is building production facilities for RDRAMs at its semiconductor plants in Chongju, North Chungchong Province. Chip fabrication, to commence later this month, is expected to reach 3 million to 5 million units a month." ee.asiansources.com CAN'T WAIT TILL THIS HITS THE US NEWSWIRES !!!