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

To: Don Green who wrote (71411)	5/1/2001 1:04:00 AM
From: Don Green	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 93625

Intel Shows Off 2-GHz Pentium 4 Company demos high-speed chip as it ramps up battle with AMD's Athlon. Tom Mainelli, PCWorld.com Wednesday, April 25, 2001 Intel is showing off its P4 muscle again. At a show Wednesday in Taipei, Taiwan, the company demonstrated its upcoming 2-GHz Pentium 4. First demonstrated at IDF in August 2000, the company trotted out the speedy chip to remind vendors it will begin shipping the product as scheduled in the third quarter of this year. It's been a busy week for Intel. Monday the company launched its 1.7-GHz P4, which puts the chip significantly ahead of AMD's 1.33-GHz Athlon processor in terms of raw megahertz. However, PC World.com tests continue to show the two chips neck and neck on many real-world benchmarks. Intel spokesperson George Alfs insists the P4 outperforms the Athlon, and says the chip's true performance chops will to come to light as more software companies optimize their products for use with it. Analyst Kevin Krewell of MicroDesign Resources says those newly optimized programs, when added to the upcoming 2-GHz chip's growing speed advantage, should give the P4 a leg up on the Athlon in terms of performance, even as that chip reaches 1.5 GHz in coming months. "Intel is making an aggressive move to bump up the frequency again," he says. "That was the whole point of the P4's new architecture." When the P4 hits 2 GHz and the Athlon is at 1.5 GHz, the speed gap will start to show up in performance, he says. Intel designed the P4 for larger MHz leaps, Krewell says. It was only a year ago that Intel and AMD were cranking up their processors in 33-MHz increments, he notes. Now the P4 is moving upward in 200 and 300 MHz leaps. Shift From PIII to P4 Intel launched the P4 chip at 1.5 and 1.4 GHz last November, then back-filled with 1.3-GHz chips. The company has quickly ramped up production to take the processor from high-end machines only to mainstream buyers, Alfs says. The company has already passed the 1 million mark for P4s shipped, he says. And despite a slowdown in the PC industry, the fast production increase--and a $300 million advertising campaign--is working quite well, Alfs says. The P4 is working its way down the price ladder, and already there are 1.3-GHz P4 systems from smaller vendors selling for as low as $899, he says. Larger vendors such as Gateway, Dell, and HP are offering P4-based systems in the $1200 range. MDR's Krewell agrees that the P4's move into the mainstream is happening fast. "Intel wants to obsolete the PIII as soon as possible," he says. By the first quarter of next year, he doesn't expect to see any PIII-labeled desktop processors left on the market. While PC speed freaks are rejoicing, Krewell says corporate users aren't sure what to make of the rapidly escalating P4 chip speeds. They're great for games, video, encoding, photo manipulation, and the like, but people who use regular office applications are questioning whether they really need all that power, he says. Want it or not, Intel has no intention of slowing things down. In the fourth quarter of this year, the company plans to release the next version of the P4, code-named Northwood. Intel will make the chip using its next-generation .13-micron process instead of the current .18-micron process. As a result, the new P4 will be smaller and cheaper to make, as well as faster. Krewell expects Intel to launch the Northwood version of the P4 at well beyond 2 GHz, at speeds of 2.3 or 2.4 GHz.

To: Don Green who wrote (71411)	5/1/2001 9:21:35 AM
From: SBHX	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 93625

Don, I think many here already pointed this out, but one interesting thing with other companies who own significantly more (in some cases more compelling as well imo) patents than rmbs is that these companies very seldom engage in litigation anywhere near rmbs' scale. I think it boils down to a very simple case. These companies are used to doing cross-licenses of IP with other companies. In their case, patents are a defense against other companies' patents. When both companies manufacture goods, a quick audit can find some level of potential infringement on both sides, which means a quick cross-licensing deal can always be worked out. This does not apply to rmbs because rmbs manufactures nothing, and when faced with someone who wants to play a different game in a different field, what should these companies do? RMBS' patent applications would have to be purer than caesar's wife and rock solid to convince the entire industry to not challenge them. And in this case, there is ample indication that it does not survive that high a bar. An entertaining saga, but it still continues does it not?