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

To: Mihaela who wrote (44473)	6/15/2000 10:28:00 PM
From: jim kelley	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 93625

This is really important news! Toshiba licenses DDR and SDRAM IP from Rambus. Now if DDR wins RMBS make more royalties than if RDRAM wins. Bash away BILOW! This should drive the price of the stock up significantly. :)

To: Mihaela who wrote (44473)	6/15/2000 10:29:00 PM
From: Scumbria	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 93625

Mihalea, Toshiba Signs Patent License Agreement With Rambus for SDRAM & DDR SDRAM Memory and Controllers. This is probably the biggest news I have seen for Rambus. Maybe it will end the DDR vs. DRDRAM debate on this thread, because Rambus wins either way. Too bad my calls expire tomorrow ;^(( Scumbria

To: Mihaela who wrote (44473)	6/15/2000 10:32:00 PM
From: rel4490	Respond to of 93625

Toshiba License: "Under the licensing agreement, the royalty rates for DDR SDRAM and the controllers, which directly interface with DDR SDRAM, are greater than the RDRAM compatible rates. The agreement also includes royalties for SDRAM and for controllers that directly interface with SDRAM, as well as a license fee for the entire agreement" The fact that the agreement covers DDR SDRAM is impressive;the fact that the rates for RDRAM are lowere is even better.

To: Mihaela who wrote (44473)	6/16/2000 2:18:00 AM
From: Bilow	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 93625

Hi All; Re the latest Rambus press release. I think this is great news for RMBS the stock. If this doesn't put the fear of God into every short, I really don't know what it would take. Buy it premarket at 5:00AM if you can get it, and sell into strength. But on second look, the news isn't as good as the press release looks. First of all, Toshiba is not one of the big three in memory, Hyundai, Samsung, and Micron, so the royalties aren't likely to be much. Second, Toshiba has never sold any DDR SDRAM, they are late to the party. For example, they gave no presentations at all during Platform 2000. Third, the news release is carefully worded to exclude high royalties on either SDRAM or Toshiba's DDR SDRAM compatible DDR FCRAM: Under the licensing agreement, the royalty rates for DDR SDRAM and the controllers, which directly interface with DDR SDRAM, are greater than the RDRAM compatible rates. The agreement also includes royalties for SDRAM and for controllers that directly interface with SDRAM, as well as a license fee for the entire agreement. biz.yahoo.com In other words, Toshiba has to pay to license SDRAM, but not at a rate presumably lower than that for RDRAM. How low is the SDRAM license rate, one wants to know, it could be negligible. One also wishes to know if the agreement included a change to the RDRAM licensing rate. Perhaps Rambus offered lower RDRAM license rates in return for including DDR. In short, the only technology that is mentioned as having a royalty rate higher than RDRAM is *DDR SDRAM. This specifically does not include SDR SDRAM, nor DDR FCRAM, which is Toshiba's big alternative to DDR. It is important to note that Toshiba is pushing DDR FCRAM. DDR FCRAM is compatible with DDR SDRAM, and can be sold into the same market, as a compatible part, similar to how VCM can be sold into the SDRAM market. Here's Toshiba's list of DRAM parts: toshiba.com The questions that needs to be asked Rambus include these: (1) Do the royalty rates for Toshiba's DDR SDRAM also apply to Toshiba's DDR FCRAM? (2) Are the royalty rates for SDRAM significant? (3) Has the royalty rate that Toshiba pays for RDRAM changed? There is a conference tomorrow morning. Look for these hardball questions to be answered. If not, this is just another puff press release. Toshiba hasn't been a major player in DRAM for quite some time. For instance, they're not on the ADT core group (the one that included Intel but not Rambus): A Hyundai spokesman said Rambus was left off the roster of the ADT core group because "they are not a silicon company; they are a design company. At this time it is limited to silicon developers." Other companies, including system vendors such as IBM, and smaller DRAM vendors such as Toshiba* and Mitsubishi Electric, will be invited in as "participants," but the core group will be limited to the founding members. techweb.com There should be some doubts about whether Toshiba intends to remain in the DRAM business at all. As technologies have advanced, it has become harder and harder for the minor players to keep a position at the table. Toshiba recently offloaded their memory packaging to Kingston. If they thought there was a lot of future volume production in DRAM, they would be doing it all in house: June 12, 2000 Kingston takes time off DRAM module process Kingston, Fountain Valley, Calif., will provide Toshiba with manufacturing services that extend from the receipt of silicon wafers through die packaging and testing to the assembly and testing of customer-specified memory modules. techweb.com So while this looks like really big news, like all of the last three months of Rambus press releases, it is probably of very little real consequence. RDRAM is still quite dead, and the vast majority of the industry is not about to license SDRAM to Rambus. -- Carl