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

To: sylvester80 who wrote (54823)	9/23/2000 12:01:06 PM
From: Scumbria	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 93625

Sylvester, The ability to filter information is a key to human survival. Unfortunately it also provides potential to lose key pieces of information. The only "facts" you recognize are ones which you believe support your position. Scumbria

To: sylvester80 who wrote (54823)	9/24/2000 6:49:41 AM
From: Bilow	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 93625

Hi sylvester80; Re my saying: "Where did VIA say that they were going to use the Samurai? Must have been something I missed." You found the Jack Robertson article that noted that VIA licensed the Samurai, and then conclude that "Bashers have the fiction and we have the facts." Let's go back to what you originally wrote: "Why did VIA drop the Samurai after testing it even though they originally said they were going to use it?" #reply-14440784 First of all, you still haven't shown a link where VIA said that they were going to use Samurai. What you have found, (in a sort of roundabout way), is a link showing that *Jack Robertson* said that VIA was going to license the Samurai. I know that Rambus heads are a bit short of processing power, but you must have realized that there is a a few bits of difference between "license" and "use", and between "VIA" and "Jack Robertson". You still haven't shown me something that I missed. I'm not saying it doesn't exist, I'm just saying that I am unaware of it. Hey, maybe I was aware of it once, but forgot, I'm human. But I still don't remember VIA saying that they were going to use the Samurai chipset, and I do seem to recall VIA vehemently denying that they were using Micron's Samurai design. I just can't find a link for the statement. I would certainly believe that VIA looked at the Samurai design, that is what Micron would have wanted. But lets get on with determining whether the two chips are, in fact, the same chip, as you are implying that VIA's chipsets will be cancelled for whatever secret reason the Samurai was canned. It must have seemed likely to you that no one could tell the difference between two semi secret chipsets, but I guess you don't know much about chips. First, let's take a look at the two chips visually. Here's a photo of the Samurai chipsets: aceshardware.com Here's a photo of the VIA chipset: watch.impress.co.jp Notice that the chips are oriented 90 degrees differently? That's cause they're different chips, the buses are on different sides of the die. But to make it clear that VIA didn't simply copy the Samurai, you should note that the VIA DDR chipsets include something called "V-link". Here's an article mentioning it: The Apollo Pro 2000 P6 DDR and subsequent chipsets will use the Via V-Link, a proprietary bus connecting the two chips of the chipset, known as the "north" and "south" bridges. The V-Link frees up the main PCI bus, the previous connection between the north and south bridge, to handle other data. techweb.com That proprietary bus is a major architectural distinction between VIA's DDR chipset and anybody else's. What they are doing here is saving pins. That means that the VIA chipset is very likely to be a bit cheaper to manufacture than the Samurai. That may be why Micron canned the Samurai - VIA has a cheaper chipset, possibly with better performance, up and running. And like Micron stated last year, they are not in the chipset business. -- Carl