""Rambus
We confirmed recently that there are two misconceptions surrounding its
competing technology, DDR. One is, DDR systems are not cheaper than new
RDRAM Pentium 4s, in fact the opposite is true, as Jim points out. We
predict this revelation will become increasingly more evident in the coming
weeks, as the Pentium 4 is shipped. The second aspect, although relative to
the first, is that switching to DDR memory is not as easy a transition from
SDRAM as the pro-DDR camp has claimed for years. Mr. Mackowiak from
Samsung explains in Bill's interview.
You Talkin' To Me? You Talkin' To Me? There Isn't Anyone Else Here, So
You Must Be Talkin' To Me. - Here Comes The Pentium 4
Intel's new Pentium 4, which will be released on Monday, was shown at
Intel's Developers Tent at the Comdex show in Las Vegas. The buzz is that
it is an awesome machine, with incredible capabilities, and it's a major
improvement over existing systems. Around here, we're dubbing the next few
quarters as "Intel Payback Time" for all they've had to endure. From
Micron's diminishing support of Rambus, to Via illegally producing P3
motherboards. Both companies may find themselves regretting such
decisions. Apparently, Intel is planning to introduce a 2GHz P4 to market
early next year, which leads us to believe they're more than ready to
rumble.
Rambus memory will certainly contribute to the new platform's performance,
and while many have questioned RDRAM's price for performance, we would like
to stress that the P4 is a much more appropriate processor for Rambus
memory, and in our estimation, the benchmarks could vindicate the company's
efforts in solving the PC bandwidth bottleneck. That's probably wishful
thinking on our part, judging from the endless articles that question
Rambus, bash Rambus and discredit Rambus.
A couple of important dates to keep in mind apart from Monday's P4 release,
are December seventh, and December 22nd. On the seventh, Rambus' motion to
dismiss parts of the Infineon case will be heard. Either the court agrees,
and consider it "advantage Rambus", or the case goes to trial, which begins
on the 22nd. In the event the case is not dismissed, be prepared for a
barrage of articles stating such false claims as "Rambus has lost," or
"Things don't look good for Rambus," or "enter your favorite Jack Robertson
headline here."
The following article was published late Friday, and offers an insight into
Rambus' licensing frontier beyond just memory.
electronicnews.com
RDRAM Vs. DDR - Price Vs. Performance (It's Not What You Might Think)
By Jim Rockwell
The fastest DDR memory (266 MHZ) is slower than the slowest Rambus memory
(600 MHZ) in the Pentium 4, and the fastest DDR PC costs more than an even
faster Pentium 4 with Rambus memory.
Proponents of DDR have been saying that DDR memory is faster and cheaper
than Rambus memory, but based upon the Micron DDR PC, and the Intel Pentium
4 it seems that this is not true.
On the P4, 600 MHZ Rambus memory bandwidth is 2.4 GHZ, (800 MHZ Rambus is
3.2 GHZ on P4) This is because all Pentium 4's have a dual channel for
memory.
266 MHZ DDR memory bandwidth is only 2.1 GHZ.
The price of a 1.4 GHZ P4 system with 128MB Rambus is $2600,
while the DDR PC, a Micron 1.2GHZ AMD with 128MB DDR is $2849.
LINKS:
HP Pavilion 1.4 GHZ P4 with 128MB Rambus 600 MHZ memory at bestbuy.com
System 2199.99 plus 299.99 for monitor with shipping included is $2599.98
bestbuy.com
Micron Millennia Max XP 1.2 GHZ AMD with 128MB DDR 266 MHZ memory at
micronpc.com
System with monitor $2699 plus $150 shipping is $2849
micronpc.com.
R2MMQ00LHRT72G6NGBRJ4
There is a cheaper DDR system with a 1.2 GHZ AMD cpu and slower 200 MHZ DDR
memory, but it is much slower. I am already doing an unfair price
comparison (unfair to Rambus) by comparing a 1.2 GHZ AMD PC against a 1.4
GHZ Pentium 4 PC.
I don't know why the PC with 266 MHZ DDR costs so much, but I have read
that the mother boards and chip sets supporting DDR memory are more
difficult to make, and it could also be that it really costs more to make
266 MHZ DDR memory at this time.
*** Please Note *** I am personally very heavily invested in Rambus,
therefore I am biased in favor of Rambus in my writings. The foregoing are
merely guesses on my part or based upon articles I have read which may not
be correct. You should not rely on what I have written for investment
purposes.
A Few Words With Samsung Semiconductor Inc.'s Senior Vice President of
Sales and Marketing, Dieter Mackowiak
Bill Teel
On November 1st, Rambus announced that Samsung, the world's largest memory
manufacturer had licensed SDRAM and DDR SDRAM technology from Rambus in a
deal that will earn Rambus royalties on over 20% of the memory market, and
bring Rambus' total SDRAM/DDR industry licensing agreements to almost 45%
throughout the industry.
Early this week we spoke with Samsung's Senior Vice President of Sales and
Marketing, Dieter Mackowiak, and learned what motivated Samsung to sign
with Rambus, as well as their outlook for both RDRAM and DDR memory.
"As the world's top supplier of DRAM, we felt it was important to assure
our customers they would not have any supply problems with whatever the
memory of choice ended up being. Our customers were looking to us for a
safe base of supply of both DDR and RDRAM, and it it's our responsibility
as the leader to provide that assurance."
Mackowiak confirmed the royalties paid to Rambus for licensing their DDR
and SDRAM technology would be easily accommodated, and is nothing out of
the ordinary. "The royalties paid to Rambus for licensing their technology
would be easily offset through volume production, and we wish to emphasize
that there is nothing unusual about this situation as Samsung is accustomed
to paying appropriate royalties for intellectual property used in their
products."
According to Mackowiak, Samsung is currently producing several million
RDRAM chips, while the current output of DDR is several hundred thousand
chips, although they are ramping DDR now, and are preparing for increased
demand into next year.
As the company ramps DDR, Mackowiak stressed that the transition from SDRAM
to DDR may not be as easy as many in the industry are predicting, and that
pricing would continue to reflect this transition. "I think the industry
may be underestimating the challenges of transitioning to DDR from SDRAM."
Pricing of DDR remains higher than SDRAM currently, but Mackowiak felt the
yields on DDR would improve as the industry learned how to produce the
memory more efficiently. "The industry is seeing the same issues with DDR
as it did with RDRAM."
In prior statements, Samsung representatives stated that their goal was to
bring RDRAM pricing within 15% of SDRAM by the end of 2001. While the
company is still shooting for that goal, Mackowiak stated that it may be
harder now that the pricing of SDRAM has collapsed. "We've been very
successful in our efforts to improve testing efficiency, shrinking the die
size and reducing the yields of RDRAM, but at this time, it is still
difficult to predict, with the pricing of SDRAM where it is, whether or not
we will meet that goal. Our learning curve has increased dramatically with
RDRAM.
Our target is to bring the RDRAM premium down to 15% by utilizing new die
architecture."
On Monday, November 13th, Samsung announced it started to produce RDRAM
using a process technology with a 0.17-micron design rule, and it would be
applied to "third-generation" Rambus memory with chip densities of 128,
144, and 288 megabits. Samsung claims these evolutionary changes will
improve the memory speed by more than 30%, and would enable 1-GHz RDRAM
levels to be met. The company predicted strong demand for Rambus memory
based on the Pentium 4.
Looking long-term, Samsung estimates its RDRAM revenues will reach $900
million in 2000, and the worldwide sales of Rambus RDRAMs will grow 132%
annually from $1.7 billion in 2000 to around $9.2 billion in by 2002.
As the industry awaits the much-anticipated release of the Pentium 4 with
Rambus inside, performance benchmarks will surely help to settle (or
continue to fuel) the debate over which is the logical post-1GHz system
memory solution, DDR or RDRAM.
Who's going to be the winner? "This will be determined by the prevailing
market conditions depending on the actual cost/performance comparison
between RDRAM and DDR," according to Mackowiak.
"Samsung believes that RDRAM is the technically superior product, but the
Industry is working on higher speed DDR as well."
The outcome is in the balance, but regardless, Samsung is ready, willing
and able to accommodate the entire industry.
Thank you and have a nice weekend.
The Fredhager.com Staff |
