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

To: mishedlo who wrote (52519)	9/4/2000 4:40:31 PM
From: mishedlo	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 93625

estoppel thanks to Blakbote on the FOOL ================================================= There is an old principle in law called estoppel which in effect says that if it can be demonstrated that by your actions/inactions you you allow people or a person to breach a rule, procedure or terms of a contract, you are estopped (i.e. prevented) from suddenly applying that rule (whatever) against the persons concerned. If JEDEC has knowingly allowed members to breach their rules, and particularly if MU has breached the JEDEC rules, then MU may be estopped from using those rules against RMBS. ========================================================== My addition - Remember MU's complaint stating the "recommended viewgraph" and "something to that effect was displayed". The "recommended" wording included patents and patent applications, if the actual wording said only "patents" can this in and of itself be estoppel? If MU did not disclose its patents is that estoppel. Any legal comments on estoppel - NightOwl or others?

To: mishedlo who wrote (52519)	9/4/2000 6:07:21 PM
From: Bilow	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 93625

Hi mishedlo; Re: "WHAT MAKES ME ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN (the most I can be without being on the inside) that this is industry bunk is a quote from an executive at Samsung to the EE Times in some article a week or two ago where he says and I paraphrase "that the best we can ever really do with RDRAM is get within 30-35% of SDRAM or DDR prices." ... Now Samsung is on record stating their goal is within 5% by early 2002. Did something material change over a few weeks time? Yes, the industry attacking RMBS over SDRAM and DDR royalties." If you go back and reread the Samsung statements you will find them consistent, given a deeper understanding of the memory business. The 30 to 35% figure was for prices of the 32/16-bank version of RDRAM RIMMs. The 5% figure is their goal for their manufacturing costs of the planned, 4-bank version of RDRAM chips. The things to note: (1) Prices are going to be higher than (cash) costs on niche memories. This is because manufacturers have to recoup NREs. (2) The 16/32-bank parts have a higher premium than future, 4-bank parts, which use less silicon area. (3) RIMMs will always be more expensive to manufacture than DIMMs, as they have heat spreaders and tighter tolerances. These are subtle differences, and doubtless go right over the head of the typical mom and pop. Hence your statement that this is all industry FUD. Basically, you're not on the inside, and because of this, cannot understand the very clear (to us) statements made by companies in the memory business. Don't feel stupid, the press screws up reporting this sort of thing all the time too, it's very complicated. Here's a reminder of what Samsung actually said, which is subtly different from what you remember: (These were hard to find, if you've got better links, please share them.) At a recent Platform 2000 conference, a Samsung official described a 4i 256-Mbit RDRAM that should cut the die-size penalty down from 10 percent to 5 percent. Eventually, Samsung believes it can reduce the area penalty to a mere 1 percent at the 1-Gbyte density, according to Ron Leckie, an analyst with Infrastructure who wrote about Samsung's presentation in a recent report. techweb.com Note that die size penalties are not the same as cost penalties, RDRAM takes more expensive testing, and has a lower yield, and is consequently more expensive even with the same die size. No surprise, though: Prices of early RDRAM modules are high primarily because manufacturers of new technologies want to recoup their development costs. ... Supply won't match demand until late 2001, in Eminian's opinion, and prices won't moderate until competitors get in and PC vendors build more systems with RDRAM to remove performance bottlenecks in systems running at 1.5 GHz or higher. But even then, RDRAM will likely sell for around 35 percent more than comparable SDRAM because of its inherent costs, despite Rambus proponents' claims, Eminian says. pcworld.com Note that in the above article, the author refers to a 35 percent cost premium for RDRAM over SDRAM, while the context of the quote makes it obvious that he really means a 35 percent cost premium for "RDRAM modules" over SDRAM modules, as that is what the user buys, rather than the chips themselves. -- Carl