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

To: Ali Chen who wrote (56062)	10/1/2000 1:58:06 AM
From: mishedlo	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 93625

<<To be accurate, RDRAM as such could be rock-stable. The problem is that PCs need many RDRAM chips to satisfy Microsoft requirements and other bloatware. Rambus system cannot reliably work with 3 RIMM. To make it work, the 3-rd slot was eliminated in all board designs. This is the fact. Working "irreliably" means "unstable", don't you agree? Another fact: Intel Or840 board was unstable when using certain combinations of RIMMs for the whole year, without any fix. The reason for multiple RIMMs to be unstable lies in fundamental physics of transmission lines with multiple impedance-mismatched T-junctions. RAMBUS tries to fix these instabilities with unbearably tight specifications on every design detail, which drives up the total cost of RIMMs and systems. Now you might be better equipped to understand why the cost of Rambus system will be _always_ significantly higher than equivalently performing SDRAM/DDRAM system.>> Yes - I believe accuracy is better and I do believe RDRAM to be rock stable. If it was not, Rambus stock would be in the toilet by now. "The problem is that PCs need many RDRAM chips to satisfy Microsoft requirements and other bloatware." I sure as hell do not understand this statement. Did not sony chose RDRAM because fewer chips were needed. Perhaps I am mistaken. "Rambus system cannot reliably work with 3 RIMM. To make it work, the 3-rd slot was eliminated in all board designs." This is true and irregular, but not unstable. It also does not imply that the problem will not be fixed. Furthermore the problem is INTEL's directly and thus only Rambus' indirectly. "Rambus system will be _always_ significantly higher than equivalently performing SDRAM/DDRAM system." This depends upon what you mean by "significant". 10% is not significant IMHO. I believe Samsung expects the costs to drop to that amount by the end of next year. I determine significant by how much extra a PC would have to cost to support it. If cost to produce drops to within 10% of SDRAM, then with the extra royalty on DDRAM, the actual price differential would only be 8%. No big deal. Finally - and this is specualtion on my part - but the delays in DDR after repeated next week, next month, next quarter, next year etc etc means to me that DDR just may be encountering the same problems or worse yet (for DDR proponents) more significant problems. At least we DO KNOW THAT RDRAM IS STABLE. No reported problems on production systems. RDRAM PCs available since January. Before we know DDR is stable we must also wait at least 3 months AFTER production shipments begin, which we are all still holding our breath for.