To: AK2004 who wrote (117662 ) 6/26/2000 2:15:00 PM From: Goutam Read Replies (2) | Respond to
albert,ebnews.com Rambus clock ticks down for Intel Intel has an agreement to get warrants for 40 million shares of Rambus stock at $2.50 each (originally 10 million, but now adjusted for a 4-to-1 stock split). That would be a tidy windfall at the Rambus stock price on Friday of $125. Unfortunately for Intel, that agreement has a deadline: By the end of this year, at least 20% of all chipsets Intel ships must have been Rambus-enabled for two consecutive quarters. The same deadline affects two other parts of the deal: an Intel member to sit on the Rambus board of directors and an Intel veto over any third-party acquisition of Rambus. Intel has perhaps a more crucial deadline-an agreement that gives the MPU titan free access to Rambus technology. Sources hint Intel would like unchallenged Rambus data rights that could be used in the next-generation memory chip being designed by the Advanced DRAM Technology alliance. This deadline is unknown, as it wasn't disclosed in the Securities and Exchange Commission filings, along with the others. It is clear, however, that unless the Intel-Rambus deadlines are extended, you can probably write off all of the above. Intel was banking on a third-quarter launch of its Willamette and Timna processors - with both using Rambus-enabled logic and memory controllers - to meet the 20% threshold. Timna is now delayed until next year, and Willamette and its Tehama chipset must start sampling quickly even to meet a 4Q launch.
