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To: mishedlo who wrote (42294)	5/16/2000 1:49:00 AM
From: Joe NYC	Respond to of 93625

Besides graphics and servers(if and when a DDR mobo gets here) WHAT DESIGN WINS DOES DDR HAVE???? Desktop PCs: Coppermine chips via Via DDR chipset and Athlon via AMD, Via, and Micron chipsets. What is the percentage of DRAM used by PC desktop/workstation/servers + graphics? I don't know the answer, but I think it is well over 50%. Regarding Coppermine, too bad Coppermine is not able to take advantage of the additional bandwidth provided by DDR or RDRAM. But there are always suckers out there who will waste their money by "upgrading" from SDRAM. Joe

To: mishedlo who wrote (42294)	5/16/2000 3:45:00 AM
From: Bilow	Respond to of 93625

Hi mishedlo; Great questions. Re the Sun MAJC, a design win for RDRAM... Engineering samples are due by June, according to this November article: Sun conjures up MAJC for multimedia frontier November 22, 1999 Sun's first product based on this architecture, MAJC 5200, will tape out in less than a month. Engineering samples are due by June 2000. techweb.com Of course, if this had been a DDR design win, the Rambus longs would be calling it vaporware, and asking where is it now? But this is a silly line of argument, and I won't stoop to it. Instead, read the above carefully, and learn a lesson in how long it takes to bring a product to market, and why I predicted that new products would continue to be announced using RDRAM for most of this year. Sun taped out the MAJC back in December of 1999, but they didn't even expect engineering samples until June of this year. That's six months of delay. In addition, it took some time for those Sun engineers to design that chip, it was probably started sometime in 1998. That was a time when it was still reasonable to believe that RDRAM would take over the memory industry. The Rambus fiasco unfolded in mid 1999. That means that designs that were substantially complete at that time, such as the MAJC design, were unable to reverse course and were stuck with RDRAM interfaces. The basic fact is that design engineers prefer DDR to RDRAM for a variety of real-world engineering reasons. But at the time that Sun started work on the MAJC, it could be reasonably supposed that RDRAM would be the only choice. In addition, at the time they started the design, the memory makers couldn't decide on a JEDEC standard for DDR. That reduced the comfort feeling for engineers, so they avoided the technology. (Which is why there aren't a lot of DDR chipsets out there right now. But the memory makers, facing a technology that would be their demise, finally got it together and put together a standard DDR technology. That is why all the chipset makers are supporting it, even Intel.) As far as RDRAM being a great choice for the MAJC technology, it may be. But remember that the most optimal architecture depends on what memory is to be used with it. There is no best design for all memory types any more than there is a best memory type for all architectures. In any case, their technology is certainly not the standard server technology, where you have a big memory. Instead it is a distributed memory, and that is more the natural RDRAM market. Of course that is also the graphics memory market, and that recently went essentially 100% to DDR... But given that RDRAM is fully supported by Intel, and is doomed to become the next big memory standard, why are so many companies supporting alternatives? At the time that Sun went with RDRAM, it was a natural choice. That was before DDR came to life. Wait till you see the chipsets for DDR coming out. Hint: The graphics guys are the first in, and they just smashed the performance figures for SDRAM based graphics controllers. But RDRAM barely provides a performance improvement over PC133. Wait till the DDR chipsets come out, they are going to kick butt. You don't have very long to wait. In fact, here is a (very safe) prediction: DDR based PCs will be available before the MAJC is in production. -- Carl P.S. It seems sort of clear that the server industry is due for some big time reductions in mark ups...

To: mishedlo who wrote (42294)	5/16/2000 3:55:00 AM
From: Bilow	Respond to of 93625

Hi mishedlo; Great questions. Re "What percentage of the market is servers?". Various DDR proponents will argue that while servers are sort of rare, the amount of memory they consume is relatively large. I won't argue that, instead I will just note that the server market is larger than the graphics market, and so is obviously big enough to keep DDR alive for the next five years. The size of the market required to keep DDR alive is a lot smaller than the size of the market required to keep RDRAM alive. This is because DDR shares so much with SDRAM. SDRAM and DDR SDRAM chips are generic before the last couple weeks of manufacture. If a customer cancels a DDR order at the last minute, the memory house simply turns the generic parts into SDRAM and sells them on the open market. RDRAM chips, on the other hand, can only be made into RDRAM. This was a lesson that the memory makers learned the hard way last year when they ended up stuck with big hoards of unwanted RDRAM chips due to Camino's delay. Because of the reduced risk, DDR needs only a small guaranteed market in order to assure its cheap production. The same cannot be said of RDRAM, which is a niche market similar to graphics memory. -- Carl

To: mishedlo who wrote (42294)	5/16/2000 3:58:00 AM
From: Bilow	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 93625

Hi mishedlo; Re "WHERE THE *** IS THAT DDR MOBO?*" It takes a while for engineers to bring these products to market. But the fact that there are many companies working on the chipsets and motherboards is a pretty good indication that someone will have them soon. I would expect to see them for sale in late 3Q00. But the next step is to see boards being sent out for benchmarking. That should be enough. -- Carl

To: mishedlo who wrote (42294)	5/16/2000 4:01:00 AM
From: Bilow	Respond to of 93625

Hi mishedlo; Re "WHERE IS TBIRD WITHOUT DDR?" About the same place as the Athlon without DDR, somewhat slower. It isn't unknown for even major CPU makers to come out with new CPUs before the supporting chipsets are ready. (Snicker :) -- Carl

To: mishedlo who wrote (42294)	5/16/2000 4:09:00 AM
From: Bilow	Respond to of 93625

Hi mishedlo; Re "What about MOT, TXN, DELL, LU, VTSS, PMCS etc all having products with RDRAM?" While it is true that Dell has a product that uses RDRAM, it is also that they sell products that use DDR. The real thing is memory makers and chipset designers. To that end, here is a list I could quickly compile: Memory makers making, or intending to make DDR: Fujitsu, Hitachi, Hyundai, IBM, Infineon, Micron, Mitsubishi, Mosaid, Nanya, NEC, Samsung, Toshiba Chipset designers designing or rumored in the industry to be designing chipsets for DDR: Acer Laboratories, ATI Technologies, IBM, Intel, Micron, Nvidia, Reliance Computer, SiS, VIA The list of companies using, or planning to use the above chipsets, in other words the board makers like ELSA, Guillemot or Dell, (does Dell use standard Intel i820 and i840 motherboards?), and the integrators like Microsoft, Nintendo, etc., is too long a list to include here, as are the memory module makers, and companies making supporting technology. But take a look at dramreview.com as that supposedly unbiased website tracks available DDR products. Incidentally, don't trust the list too much. It was updated today, but they managed to leave off the following new GeForce2 DDR products: AOpen PA256 Pro ELSA Gladiac Leadtek WinFast GeForce2 And before you suggest that these are vaporware, do remember that the MAJC presumably isn't even back from fab and tested. (If it is, where's the big press release???), while the Micron Samurai has already been sent out for benchmarking. In fact, I expect to see the MAJC any time now, and I also expect to see quite a hoard of DDR announcements. -- Carl