Not sure this was posted yet. Came out yesterday..out of Cahners E insite. fwiw
NEC-Hitachi Joint Venture Reveals Rambus Plans
News from E-InSite
The new NEC-Hitachi Inc. joint memory venture seems to be adopting Hitachi’s gloomy outlook on the
market prospects of direct Rambus DRAM (RDRAM), which spells more bad news for Rambus Inc.
RDRAM was conspicuously absent from workstations in NEC-Hitachi’s DRAM forecast at the
Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International (SEMI) Microelectronic Materials Strategy
Symposium in San Francisco this week. The forecast also shows a mystery DRAM appearing in
high-end PCs by 2003.
“The market for Rambus is limited to high-end PCs only,” said Yasushi Okuyama, director of process
development at NEC-Hitachi Memory Inc. “Rambus power consumption might be too high for the
notebook PC.”
The forecast was in line with Hitachi’s expectations for the joint venture, a Hitachi spokesperson said.
“That’s consistent with what I’ve been hearing,” the spokesperson said. "There is not a whole lot of
demand for RDRAM in the high-end workstation market.”
The revelations are more evidence of the widening rift between Rambus and the rest of the DRAM
industry, said Brian Matas, vice president of market research at IC Insights Inc., Scottsdale, Ariz.
“If that’s really their plan, that’s a pretty big blow for Rambus,” Matas said. “What it says to me is that
backing for RDRAM is really waning.”
RDRAM has been relegated to the high-end desktops, and that is probably where it will stay, said
Sherry Garber, vice president of Semico Research Corp., Phoenix, Ariz.
“That’s where it makes the most sense,” Garber said. “Everyone’s starting to admit it now.” The new
joint venture’s bottom line appears to have won out over NEC Corp.’s longstanding relationship with
Rambus, she said.
“I’m sure there have been discussions,” Garber said. “I would assume they’ve looked at it from a
business standpoint, and asked, ‘What is the best product to make the most revenue?’ Ultimately, I
think this is a dollar decision.”
Other analysts could not believe the news.
“I can’t imagine why they would do that,” said Steve Cullen, principal analyst at Cahners In-Stat Group,
Scottsdale, Ariz. “The only reason I can think of is that they may be defining workstations differently,
but a lot of RDRAM is going out in workstations.”
The term used to denote the undefined DRAM (nDRAM) that appears on the NEC-Hitachi forecast in
2003 is the same one Intel used to show RDRAM on early Pentium 4 roadmaps three years ago,
sources said. It could possibly represent next-generation Rambus memory, analysts said.
But it will probably be the fruits of the Advanced DRAM Technology alliance (ADT) Intel formed with
NEC, Hyundai Electronics Industries Co. Ltd., Infineon Technologies AG, Micron Technology Inc., and
Samsung Semiconductor Inc. to develop the next-generation memory architecture, Matas said.
“A chip based on that co-operative effort is supposed to be right in the 2003 time frame, so it could be
that,” he said. Or it could be a new type of DRAM developed internally by NEC-Hitachi.
“A lot of the other DRAM companies are exploring DRAM alternatives that might compete for market
attention, and yet not have to pay royalties to Rambus,” Matas said.
NEC-Hitachi might not even know for sure what type of DRAM they will use at this stage, a Hitachi
spokesperson added. Rambus refused to comment on the forecast.
News of NEC-Hitachi’s positioning strategy is just the latest in a string of blows for the beleaguered
Mountain View, Calif.-based intellectual property (IP) house, since Intel Corp. broke its promise to use
RDRAM as the only memory for its forthcoming Pentium 4. Earlier this month, Micron and Hyundai both
hit Rambus with separate lawsuits seeking to overturn Rambus’ patent claims on synchronous DRAM
(SDRAM) and double data rate (DDR) memory technology.
But Rambus hasn’t been taking the hits lying down. It has swung plenty of punches of its own, filing
multiple lawsuits against Micron, Infineon and Hyundai, as well as lobbying the U.S. International Trade
Commission (ITC) to stop Hyundai from shipping SDRAM and DDR into the U.S.
NEC-Hitachi’s strategy is another sign of the increasing resistance to Rambus’ stand-over tactics,
Matas said.
“Not everyone is going to slip underneath the RDRAM pressure, and I think it sends a pretty strong
statement that there are other alternative out there,” Matas said.
“The world isn’t migrating to Rambus just because Intel deemed that was the way it wanted to go,” he
said.
It is also a move that makes good business sense.
“They’re not going to want to go exploring RDRAM if it’s going to remain very small and limited,” Matas
said. “If they see the market going more towards DDR or some other technology, then I think that’s the
way they will move.”
There may still be a ray of hope for RDRAM, according to Jim Cantore, program manager
semiconductors at International Data Corp. (IDC), Framingham, Mass.
“The one wild card is the granularity issue,” Cantore said. “If it gets down to where memory is expensive,
it may get difficult to go from 128 (Mbit) to 256 (Mbit). In a shortage situation, which could occur in the
next two years, Rambus could get additional market share for the systems that don’t need 256Mbit.”
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