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

To: Dave B who wrote (44122)	6/12/2000 4:22:00 AM
From: Dave B	Respond to of 93625

After 6(?) months, the ADT is still trying to figure out whether to aim for higher memory frequency per pin or go for more memory bandwidth per module. Definitely has the makings of a standard "designed by committee" activity going here. DRAM alliance is no Intel pushover. (A Closer Look)(Industry Trend or Event) Electronic Buyers' News, May 15, 2000 p4 By Robertson, Jack -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Full Text It comes as no surprise that the Advanced DRAM Technology alliance has yet to become a cohesive, unifying force. That's probably par at this early stage of trying to define an architecture for the next- generation successor to double-data-rate (DDR) and Direct Rambus memory, to be ready in 2003. And it puts to rest any suspicion that ADT was formed to push any particular memory architecture or design. Intel reportedly joined the alliance favoring a new type of packet-data memory. But the five DRAM members, Hyundai, Infineon, Micron, NEC, and Samsung, are believed to be sharply divided over the merits of packet data. Sources say some memory makers would simply like to morph the evolving DDR-II design into the final ADT concept. The group so far can't agree whether its goal is to get higher memory frequency per pin or go for more memory bandwidth per module. Of course, it's a good thing to air all opinions at this formulative stage. There was no industry give-and-take on Direct Rambus DRAM. Intel presented the proprietary design as the only next-generation memory it would support. The memory industry's ire at Intel's hubris was a prime factor in forming ADT and giving DRAM producers a solid voice in defining any successor memory. ADT, however, has been maintained as a closed club of only six members-supposedly done to avoid tortuous, prolonged debates in determining a new chip standard among the scores of JEDEC participants. It's probably easier to reach agreement among a few of the DRAM elite, but at least for now, ADT on the level of concepts and ideas is ranging as widely as JEDEC often does itself. Nevertheless, oligopolies historically resolve differences for the mutual interest of the few. And ADT certainly is an oligopoly, with five companies controlling 75% to 80% of the global DRAM market and Intel more than 80% of the PC processor market. By shutting out Rambus as a member, ADT seems to foreordain that the proprietary Direct RDRAM architecture as now structured is not in the picture for 2003. For good measure, ADT requires any design it sanctions to be open and available to all. That could change dramatically if Rambus and Intel achieve their goal of making Direct RDRAM the dominant memory in the next couple of years. ADT could also be affected by the outcome of the Rambus patent suit against Hitachi, which the Japanese company wants to broaden to include other DRAM makers. Besides, the wild and woolly DRAM market can't be figured out even a few months ahead, and could flip-flop ad nauseum as ADT struggles to hold the course. Dave

To: Dave B who wrote (44122)	6/12/2000 8:30:00 AM
From: Joe NYC	Respond to of 93625

Dave, OT Someone doesn't need to understand how a car operates to operate a car, they just need to learn three or four basic input activities (brake, gas, steering wheel, and possibly clutch). How is it different from using a mouse / keyboard? As far as everybody jumping on my term "computer illiterate", how is that different from someone who doesn't know how to drive a car, can't swim, can't ride a bike? To me these are similar, except using a computer is slightly more intellectual, as opposed to mechanical skill. Someday, there will be better ways to interact with computers than keyboards or mice (voice, brainwaves, who knows?), but they'll definitely require more processing power. I don't disagree. My original point was that the voice recognition was not one of those future technologies that are going to drive the stock price of Rambus to $1,000 (since memory is not the bottleneck). The voice recognition has been here for some time, and it has worked ok on a modest hardware, fraction of a processing power of today's 1 GHz processors. The challenge is to integrate the VR into user interface in a practical manner, which so far nobody has done. Joe