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

To: Estephen who wrote (46439)	7/2/2000 1:30:41 PM
From: Estephen	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 93625

Intel's new chip to be called Pentium 4 By Michael Kanellos Staff Writer, CNET News.com June 28, 2000, 9:00 a.m. PT Intel will call Willamette, its next-generation processor, the Pentium 4. The Pentium 4 will succeed the Pentium III and in many ways will be a landmark release for the chipmaker. For one, Willamette, and a related chip for servers code-named "Foster," will feature an entirely new architecture, which will give the company room to innovate or tap new features. For more than five years, new Intel microprocessors have relied on the same basic architecture. The Pentium Pro, which came out in October 1995, effectively features the same "P6" design as the Pentium II, the Celeron, Xeon processors and the Pentium III. Although the P6 architecture has enjoyed a good commercial life, the architecture is reaching its performance limits. One of the reasons Advanced Micro Devices has been able to put so much pressure on Intel in recent months is that its Athlon chip features a brand-new architecture with plenty of untapped headroom. This has permitted AMD to raise the clock speed almost at will. Pentium 4 will debut at an initial speed of 1.4 GHz, according to Intel. Rather than increase speed in 33-MHz or 50-MHz increments, the chips will jump by 100 MHz at a time. In other words, the next step up will be a 1.5-GHz chip. As with the earlier Pentium generations, the Pentium 4 will likely be split into sub-brands. Another feature will be a 400-MHz system bus, roughly three times as fast as Intel's current system bus. The system bus serves as a data conduit between the processor and the rest of the computer. The faster it is, the better. When combined with Rambus memory, Willamette computers are expected to establish new levels of desktop performance, analysts have said. The chip is expected to debut late in the third quarter or early in the fourth quarter. Paul Otellini, general manager of the Intel Architecture Group, said in April that Willamette computers would be available for the peak buying season in 2000. An Intel spokesman said "hundreds of thousands" of systems will ship this year. Many predicted that Intel would use the Pentium 4 designation. The only thing that may catch notice is the shift from Roman to Arabic numerals. "They've got a lot of brand equity in Pentium," said analyst Nathan Brookwood of Insight 64. "I would be surprised if it was something else." Chairman Andy Grove said earlier this year that it could be expected that the company would leverage the Pentium brand name in some fashion. "Pentium is one of the most recognized brands in the world, and it has strong equity with users," said Erik Reid, senior brand manager at Intel, who added that the color scheme of the chip will be blue and orange, rather than blue and green. "We wanted a bold contemporary look for the new badge." News.com's Ian Fried contributed to this report.

To: Estephen who wrote (46439)	7/2/2000 3:13:24 PM
From: Barry Grossman	Respond to of 93625

Estephen, That EBN article has a new ending in this version found at: Message 13985047 I can't find the article on the EBN site though. Barry ------------- 6/30/00 - Rambus hopes DRAM royalties tip the scale Jun. 30, 2000 (Electronic Buyers News - CMP via COMTEX) --These are heady times for Rambus Inc. Through an artful application of the carrot and the stick, the third-party IP designer has retained Wall Street's favor while bolstering its claim to fundamental DRAM technology patents. Initially, Rambus' contention that it owns the rights to the synchronous interface found in most memory chips on the market was roundly rejected by leading DRAM manufacturers as indefensible. As part of a standard forged in an open JEDEC forum, the technology was held by many in the industry to be common property. But last month's surprise licensing agreement with Toshiba Corp.-and the subsequent and even more startling out-of-court settlement with Hitachi Ltd.-has seriously challenged that premise. Although the two vendors are not among the DRAM market's top tier, their willingness to negotiate away what previously had been thought of as standard technology has given Rambus the legal high ground in its quest to control key DRAM intellectual property. Since they aren't talking, one can only guess at the reaction to the licensing deals by leading manufacturers like Hyundai, Micron Technology, NEC, and Samsung-though it's a safe bet their legal departments will see a spike in billable hours in the weeks ahead. However, if the story unfolds anything like Rambus' Direct RDRAM licensing plan, then presumably Toshiba and Hitachi have received favorable terms that will begin to degrade for the rest of the DRAM industry depending on how long it takes them to come to the table. And assuming it's successful in pressing its claim, Rambus could realize a healthy new royalty stream, not just from Direct RDRAM sales but from the sale of single-data-rate and double-data-rate SDRAM. And therein hangs the tale. Though it has weathered delays from associated core-logic chipsets coming from Intel Corp., Rambus technology still suffers from the perception that it's more costly, consumes more space, and is harder to manufacture and test than conventional SDRAM. Those drawbacks have kept most companies (with Samsung the notable exception) from jumping on the Rambus bandwagon with anything near the enthusiasm that had been expected. Unable to win converts, shrink die, and cut costs fast enough to build a critical mass, Rambus has hit upon an ingenious alternative by raising the price of its rival interface. Whether that will prove incentive enough to finally win over DRAM manufacturers will be interesting to witness. E-mail me with any comments at amaclell@cmp.com. ebnonline.com