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Technology Stocks : Advanced Micro Devices - Moderated (AMD) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: kash johal who wrote (11952)	10/7/2000 1:45:28 PM
From: Dan3	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 275872

Re: RMBS claims are essentially that ANY processor manufacturer that has an SDRAM and DDR interface violates their IP Trouble is, Rambus is saying that patents claimed in the context of RDRAM also apply to earlier DRAM and other interfaces. Meanwhile, Infineon has said, "OK, have it your way, but then we are applying our patent claims made in the context of earlier DRAM and other interfaces to RDRAM." Rambus is the one that starting stretching their patent claims into other contexts, but it looks like Infineon, Micron, and Hyundai are going to finish that process. What's good for the goose is good for the gander, and it looks like Rambus's goose has just been cooked. It's looking more and more likely that Rambus will be shutting its doors sometime in 2001 - I think Rambus is finished. What's Rambus stock worth if its IP is invalidated? There should be some cash on hand, prepaid rents, office furniture, and other odds and ends, isn't there? Does 10 cents a share sound about right? Dan

To: kash johal who wrote (11952)	10/7/2000 3:33:38 PM
From: Charles R	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 275872

Kash, <RMBS claims are essentially that ANY processor manufacturer that has an SDRAM and DDR interface violates their IP. As well as any chipset guy as well.> Agreed. <So in litigation they will attempt to stop the sale of AMD processors and chipsets.> Let's be clear first on what does or does not get affected. Athlon/Duron is not affected. Chipsets and some embedded processors are. So, for Rambus to seek stop of sale of AMD processors and chipsets the assumption is that AMD will get this to a point where they will risk shipments of embedded processors and mainstream x86 chipsets. Is that correct? If so, I would not make that assumption. <BTW, if RMBS's claims are proven and held then they will collect all sorts of royalties as lot of chips,controllers, processors interface to dram synchronously.> The only thing that I think that matters here is how much penalty AMD will pay over what Intel/VIA pays. (because competitively, if all parties have same percentages no one is at a disadvantage). The realistic worst case I see is AMD pays 3% more than Intel payable on the value of entire chipset. That should work out to less than $1 on average. The more likely case is probably a 1% penalty on the DRAM controller part of the chipset which assuming DRAM controller is 1/2 of chipset die size (pretty conservative) would mean probably a $0.15 difference. IMHO, inconsequential for all practical purposes. Do you see this differently? <When Mu sued rambus, mu's stock fell around 7-10%.> I do not know if anyone can tell how much of the drop was related to litigation with Rambus but whatever it is, it has to do with the perception that entire Micron DRAM business is affected. Chipset/embedded sales of AMD are a small fraction of the business. <If and when litigation starts with AMD i see AMD as dropping as well.> Possible but I am hard pressed to see much downside if things go wrong. There is very little incentive for AMD not to settle. The real issue is how AMD goes about making sure that it does not pay much more than what Intel does. <There is NO scenario that i can see, where AMD's stock will go up due to rmbs litigation.> This I can easily agree with. OTOH, if there is no litigation and AMD/RMBS announce they agreed amicably, that could be perceived as a positive. Chuck