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

To: Don Green who wrote (49474)	8/12/2000 3:37:01 AM
From: Bilow	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 93625

Hi Don Green; Funny thing about network processors and RDRAM. One that comes to mind is PixelFusion, who's Fuzion 150 chip was rather raggedly quoted in your article as having: "each with 2 kbytes* of memory accessed through four Rambus DRAM channels". (LOL!!! Don't get scared, it's just a typo in the article, should be 2GBytes.) The other is Sun's MAJC chip... The funny thing about these two chips is that both are quite late, both are in the process of being respun, and both were also intended for graphics as well as network processors. [Aside: My calculations suggest that 256Mb is the largest memory that can realistically be placed on a Rambus channel for use as a graphics memory (per the Bilow constant of 60Hz bandwidth per byte of memory), and that with RDRAM selling at least 50% more than DDR, and DDR soon available at 400MHz x32, the graphics industry will not convert to RDRAM.] But anyway, here is what PixelFusion said earlier this year. PixelFusion's new CEO says SIMD chip on track for rollout this year* February 11, 2000 As to the Fuzion 150 chip itself, Sterns said, "Tapeout is imminent and we are aggressively moving into new markets. We started by targeting 3-D graphics and high-performance workstations but the chip is also well-suited to video broadcast. We are also beginning to explore network processing." techweb.com These management blurbs can be hard to understand sometimes, so a translation is in order: [English: We got chased out of the graphics market and are now looking for a new story to tell the venture capitalists. We've burned a pile of their money to the tune of a couple dozen million dollars. Now we've run out, and we don't have anything to show for it but a song, a dance, and vapor ware.] Six months have gone by since February 11, and still no Fuzion chip... Drip. Drip. Drip. Sun is also a bit late. Just because the old lady is eating a lot and getting big around the belly doesn't mean she's gonna have a baby. In fact, Sun is positively past due (must be menopause): Sun's first product based on this architecture, MAJC 5200, will tape out in less than a month. Engineering samples are due by June 2000. techweb.com June, July, August... Where's MAJC? OH, WHERE'S MAJC? HERE MAJC! HERE MAJC! COME OUT COME OUT WHEREVER YOU ARE!!! YOUR DINNER'S GETTING COLD! Drip. Drip. Drip. (*LOL!!!*) Nope, no matter how much I plead, no matter what stone I look under, I just can't find that MAJC (and still no data sheets on the Sun website). But I did hear an industry rumor. Supposedly, some those transistors aren't hooked up correctly and the baby is getting respun. If this is the case, (and since it was supposed to be ready in June, so it is almost certainly what happened), we should see the respin available later this month or maybe next. Basically a rather expensive 10 or 12 week delay. I would say that that should put it in a position to compete with the fourth version of the Nvidia GeForce graphics card. (LOL!!!) Since Sun already announced that they had silicon back, they are not likely to issue another PR, saying that they did it again, but this time got it right. Therefore, you will probably have to wait until the second revision tests good to see the big announcement, with engineering samples in September or so. -- Carl