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

To: Don Green who wrote (42516)	5/18/2000 8:23:00 PM
From: Don Green	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 93625

Intel i820 fiasco advances Rambus ramp-up Electronic Business Asia May 18, 2000 --- Major performance issues, including system hangs and reboots, with PC motherboards equipped with both the Intel i820 chipset and MTH (Memory Translator Hub) ? this combination is designed to support SDRAM rather than the more expensive RDRAM option ? have given rise to the prospect of some one million defective boards having to be replaced with Rambus memory-equipped boards. In Korea, all indications are that the costly fiasco is leading chip makers to ramp-up Rambus output, Electronic Business Asia, an E-inSITE affiliate, reports. Samsung has announced it will ramp Rambus output by 50 percent, from a current two million units per month. By the end of the year, output could well be up to five million units a month. "Lately, we obtained an additional order from Intel to supply one million Rambus DRAMs," said a Samsung spokesman. Hyundai Electronics said it is considering doubling output of its 128M and 144M Rambus DRAM output from a current 500,000 units per month. Currently, Toshiba and NEC each produce one million Rambus DRAMs monthly, say industry observers in Korea, but may double it as a result of increased demand from Intel. A ramp-up of Rambus memory output would have the effect of driving its price down, which in turn would help Rambus become the mainstream memory technology for the PC. "As Korean and Japanese chip makers ramp-up Rambus DRAM, the price gap could drop to 1.5 times later this year and 1.3 times before June 2001," according to Kim Chang-Hyon, director of Samsung Electronics. "If the price gap continues to dwindle, Rambus DRAM will become mainstream earlier than expected." Currently, Rambus DRAM is being traded at a price two to three times higher than that of its SDRAM counterpart. Consequently, Rambus DRAM is expected to take only 5 percent of the global DRAM market during 2000, despite Intel's aggressive marketing push. At the same time, its main use will be limited to high-performance PCs. Some managers are not at all optimistic about this latest Rambus ramp-up. "Once the Intel recall frenzy calms down, the Rambus ramp may be back to its original pace," said one manager at Hyundai Electronics. electronicnews.com