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

To: Earlie who wrote (78293)	3/22/2000 7:54:00 AM
From: gnuman	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 132070

"Contract Prices for 64Mb DRAMs Continue Falling". And this is very interesting. "Specialists expect that the average prices for 128Mb DRAMs will decline to be even less expensive than the unit price of 64Mb DRAMs. In accordance with this trend, the average amount of memory for a PC will likely increase. Low-priced PC models can now be equipped with 128Mb worth of DRAM memory as standard. " But we predicted that. <g> nikkeibp.asiabiztech.com

To: Earlie who wrote (78293)	3/22/2000 9:05:00 AM
From: gnuman	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 132070

Why did ATI pay $400 million for an IP company, ArtX? First, a little about ArtX from their web site. ArtX, Incorporated is a supplier of Intellectual Property and system products to the graphics and multimedia industry. We were founded in 1997 and are based in Palo Alto, California. Since our inception, ArtX has built one of the most talented groups of graphics and systems innovators in the industry and is inventing new ways of realizing the benefits of high-performance, cost-effective 3D in PCs and consumer devices. Nintendo, realizing ArtX's capabilities, partnered with ArtX to develop the leading-edge graphics technologies for their next-generation entertainment console. Nintendo and ArtX, along with partners IBM, and Matsushita will deliver unmatched interactive entertainment. David Orton, President and CEO, ArtX Prior to ArtX, David E. Orton was Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Visual Computing business Unit for Silicon Graphics, Inc. He was responsible for all of the company's graphics related businesses and technologies from workstations to high-end graphics. These businesses included the Unix and NT desktops, the volume flat panel business, the Onyx2 graphics supercomputers business, and the OpenGL developments. Also of interest is their use of MoSys technology, (another IP company). MoSys' patented 1T-SRAM technology is used in Dolphin to embed large, very high performance memory directly onto the ArtX graphics chip. It eliminates the transmission times between memory and chip. Gamers can expect more detailed graphics moving at higher framerates. The ArtX SoC graphics controllers with imbedded MoSyS DRAM are claimed to be very fast, perhaps exceeding the performance of Nvidia's DDR products, the current performance leaders. It may also be this solution outperforms Sony's PSX2 Emotion engine with discrete Rambus, and the X-box, rumored to use DDR. (Note: Unlike the PSX2 and X-box, Nintendo's Dolphin will be a pure game console with no aspirations for internet capabilities). But it may be we are viewing the future of PC graphics controllers. An SoC device with these capabilities should result in gamer type performance on low end PC's. SoC controllers in volume could be quite inexpensive, and as we know the CPU's on low end PC's keep increasing in performance. Combined with ever decreasing system memory costs, (note: if memory serves me, Moore's Law originally applied to DRAM), I can easily envision a $500 box that meets all the requirements of hi performance 3D gamer nuts. ArtX has a number of patents for their technology. It may be that ATI has made a wise investment. JMHO's Gene