Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

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

To: Scumbria who wrote (44816)	6/17/2000 3:45:00 PM
From: pompsander	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 93625

scumbria; I am not qualified to comment on the quality of Rambus' patent designs. However, I am very impressed that Toshiba would agree contractually to respect such patents. Presumably Toshiba will pay royalties under their contract on DDR, for example, even if the patents are declared invalid at some point (although we would all need to see the fine print on that one!). Nevertheless, Toshiba's position is compelling and all others who choose to battle Rambus on this issue are welcome to do so, but clearly do so at some greater peril than was felt to be the case a week ago. I am intrigued by your comment that Rambus, to paraphrase, didn't work very hard to get its patents. Or rather, didn't deserve the patents because they didn't earn them somehow. Many of the great discoveries in history have been done by accident. Scientists were looking for one thing, found another, discovered a use for it, and got a patent. Should they be penalized because they didn't even try to find the product or process they discovered..that it was "an accident". Hey, they didn't "earn it". Rambus has a fistful of patents. How they got them, whether they earned them, whether they worked hard enought to get them is totally irrelevant. The only question is whether they will stand up to legal scrutiny. Rambus may have won the lottery, but all I can say is good for them.

To: Scumbria who wrote (44816)	6/17/2000 3:48:00 PM
From: milo_morai	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 93625

Rambus Announces World's Fastest Bus Technology Multi-Level Signaling Technology Capable of Data Transfer Rate of 1.6 Gigabits per Second Honolulu, Hawaii - June 16, 2000 - Rambus Inc. (Nasdaq: RMBS), the leading provider of high bandwidth chip connection technology, today unveiled its new multi-level signaling technology during the VLSI Circuits Symposium. The Quad Rambus Signaling Level (QRSL) technology enables data transfer rates of 1.6 Gigabits per second (Gbps), twice Rambus' current signaling technology and four times the fastest demonstrated DDR SDRAM devices. In 1992, Rambus increased the data rate of conventional signaling tenfold by increasing the clock rate by a factor of five and transferring two bits per clock cycle. The Rambus Signaling Level (RSL) accomplishes the transfer of two bits per clock cycle and is commonly referred to as double date rate (DDR) signaling technology. Today, Rambus has again pioneered high-speed signaling with its breakthrough multi-level QRSL technology. QRSL combines the patented double data rate (DDR) technology along with multi-level signaling to transfer four bits per clock cycle in order to achieve unprecedented commodity signaling rates of 1.6 Gbps, yielding 12.8 Gigabytes per second (GB/s) from a 64-bit bus. "Toshiba has licensed QRSL from Rambus to deliver high bandwidth solutions to leading-edge consumer and communications markets," said Yasuo Morimoto, president and CEO, Toshiba Corporation Semiconductor Company. "Toshiba is the leading technology supplier to these markets which continue to require ever higher performance and is looking forward to Rambus' QRSL signaling technology to meet this requirement." QRSL is ideal for small memory subsystems and chip-to-chip connections to solve performance bottlenecks in consumer and communications products. These applications include multi-processor interconnect in servers, line cards, networking equipment, video games, HDTV, set-top boxes, digital video recorders, and sealed box Information appliances. As the number of memory chips in PCs continues to shrink, this market will also ultimately be served by QRSL technology. "Consumer and communications applications require even higher levels of throughput and performance than ever before," said Steve Cullen, Principal Analyst at InStat Research. "Rambus' QRSL represents the most significant increase over proposed alternatives to achieve higher performance. QRSL technology enables semiconductor companies to produce lower pin count, cost-effective ICs and ASICs to meet their next-generation product requirements." "Our development team has produced test chips that have proven the technology is stable and producible and we are now ready to work with partners toward incorporating this signaling technology into their devices," said Dave Mooring, President of Rambus Inc. "Rambus' objective is to produce innovations that will benefit the semiconductor and systems industries. We are pleased to continue our role in leading the industry in memory and chip connections technologies." About Rambus Inc. Rambus Inc. develops and licenses high bandwidth chip connection technologies to enhance the performance of computers, consumer electronics and communications products. Current Rambus-based computers supported by Intel chipsets include Dell, Compaq, Hewlett-Packard, and IBM PCs and workstations. Sony's PlayStation©2 video game system uses Rambus memory. Providers of Rambus-based integrated circuits include the world's leading DRAM, ASIC and PC controller manufacturers. Currently, eight of the world's top-10 semiconductor companies license Rambus technology. More information on Rambus Inc. and its high bandwidth technologies is available at rambus.com. Rambus and RDRAM are registered trademarks of Rambus Inc. Contact: Kristine Wiseman Rambus Public Relations (650) 944-8000 kwiseman@rambus.com Susan Berry Rambus Investor Relations (650) 944-7900 ir@rambus.com rambus.com Yawn Milo

To: Scumbria who wrote (44816)	6/17/2000 4:22:00 PM
From: multicollinearity	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 93625

Scumbria re: <Rambus believes that they have (opportunisticaly) extended this patent to synchronous controllers and synchronous memories. There is in fact, no other rational way to set the memory delay on reads, and it is rather obviously necessary, but Rambus has managed to obtain a patent. Their claims on this particular patent do not seem to me indicative of hard word or innovation, except on the part of their patent law department> Hello Scumbria: Let's assume that your argument is correct. How then do you explain the fact the the law department saw fit to grant Rambus a patent on this? Additionally, I believe that the amount of "hard work" exerted to arrive at the innovation is not an issue in determining if a patent should be granted. For instance, while observing some process, one could have a flash of insight as to how the procedure could be radically improved with a very simple alteration. Many extremely simple, "why-didn't-I-think-of-that" ideas that required little effort have been patented. Best, Multico

To: Scumbria who wrote (44816)	6/17/2000 4:23:00 PM
From: Zeev Hed	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 93625

Where did you get that "most patents are issued for very obvious..." The patent law specifically refuses to grant a patent for anything which would be "obvious" to a person trained in the art. To get a patent, to covered invention should be new, useful and non obvious. Can you conceive of a magnetic heat pump using superconductors as there working media? (#5,091,361)? How many patents have you written that you know not the basic requirement for getting a patent? Zeev

To: Scumbria who wrote (44816)	6/18/2000 12:47:00 PM
From: Dan3	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 93625

Re: on the part of their patent law department.... I agree. The Rambus engineers appear to be incompetent, but their lawyers and PR people are the best in the industry. So far, the lousy engineers/great lawyers approach seem to be beating the great engineers/lousy lawyers approach. At least now we know that it's more important to see who's doing the lawyering than who's doing the engineering. Tech stock evaluation for the new millennium! Regards, Dan