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

To: Dave B who wrote (39136)	4/3/2000 2:03:00 AM
From: Bilow	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 93625

Hi Dave B; If RDRAM/i820 had worked last fall, it would have been shipped then. This is very clear, though the cause of the problem has not been announced. One is not going to find a reputable source for the cause of a secret problem at Intel. They never released what the cause of the problem was, or what they did to fix it. Given the options, we can assume that space aliens bought up all the available supplies in order to mount an invasion of Proxima Centauri, or, more simply, that there were problems with the technology. Problems with the technology could have been exploding parts, complete with gaseous fumes showing images of the baby Jesus, but that isn't what I've been hearing, nor is it what those who design these things would expect. What we expected was bit errors, and all indications are that that is what the problem was. Pretty much anything else would have been a worse problem, and would have prevented the technology from shipping at all. Industry rumors of Rambus' flakey timing were not uncommon, and a lot of memory engineers expected to see problems, due to the very tight manufacturing tolerances required. Micron certainly knew about it. The rumors were proved true when the technology fell apart last fall. Since then, design engineers have been avoiding it, though old designs using the technology are likely to continue to be publicly announced. One of the things I should note is that RDRAM is generally available in ECC form, while SDRAM is generally not. This is a place that the memory industry has visited before, alpha radiation used to cause bit errors in all DRAM, and engineers included ECC. (The problem was solved by switching materials in the package, if my memory serves correctly.) ECC is expensive, it increases memory costs by something like 10%. That is more than the profit margins of a lot of companies, to a design engineer, 10% is a hell of a lot. Engineers only include ECC for very good reasons, and the only good reason is that the memory technology needs it. SDRAM doesn't need it, RDRAM does. This essentially proves that RDRAM (as used in PCs) drops bits. Computers are not things of perfection. They have error rates, though those error rates can be vanishingly small. There was a time when DRAM had frequent bit errors, and back in those days ECC was also used. When the problem was found, the ECC was removed, as an unnecessary cost. To see ECC put back into memory is a step back into the past, and an undeniable indication that the technology still drops bits. Naturally, Intel doesn't release descriptions of how it screwed up, nor does Rambus. But hardocp.com got a hold of the problem and published it. I posted it to the AMD/Intc/Rmbs thread with some commentary here: RMBS is in hot water. I've been wrong before, but my guess is no solution in 4Q. #reply-11568974 . Of course, I was perfectly correct in my prediction of no solution in 4Q99, despite frequent suggestions on this thread that a solution was near. -- Carl P.S. As long as I'm in the mood to blow my own horn... On a more serious note, kudos to Bilow for predicting exactly this sort of problem (works fine the lab, fails on the production line). #reply-11349385 "The Rambus electricals are absolutely state-of-the-art for today's technology. When you come down to it, I guess they just pushed too hard," Glaskowsky said." Shades of Bilow #reply-11348939