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To: The Prophet who wrote (72656)	5/12/2001 1:39:26 PM
From: SBHX	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 93625

Prophet, SDR is selling the way it is now because supply is not increasing. If the supply goes up, the price will also rachet down. DDR is the price it is because it has ramped up. The incremental cost of going from SDR to DDR is not significant. If you look at just the pure economics alone, the SDR->DDR switch is the most logical one for SDR fabs. It looks like SDR is on the path to being phased out. Which one of DRDRAM/DDR will take over? I have some thoughts on that. <g> While the slower DDRs are cheap, the price of the faster DDRs (3-4 ns) are still expensive, but these things are selling in the 3D graphics adapters from the high vol manufacturers like nvda and atyt. A typical graphics adapter today is using 32MB DDR, and a high end one is 64MB DDR. This has been going on for at least a year, and has provided a lucrative market for the DDR makers. It was the graphics guys buying DDR that allowed the makers to recoup their costs so quickly. SbH

To: The Prophet who wrote (72656)	5/13/2001 6:01:26 AM
From: Bilow	Respond to of 93625

Hi The Prophet; Re: "And since the rampup costs of DDR exceed those of SDRAM, no DDR manfufacturer in their right mind is going to rush to build DDR in order to sell it at the same price as SDRAM, when they can get a premium on RDRAM." Pricing for DDR is about 59% higher than the pricing for SDRAM right now. They're made on the same lines, and it's pretty much a no brainer to keep converting lines over from SDRAM to DDR as long as that premium remains. Probably you got the idea that SDRAM is the same price as DDR from the Micron BS. Just like the Samsung BS. A better idea would be to simply look at the spot prices. They lead the PriceWatch prices a month or two, and I'd track RDRAM's spot market pricing instead of PriceWatch prices, but RDRAM is too small of a niche to make the spot market. Note: the total RDRAM market is big enough to be traded on spot, the problem is that the market is split between 5 or so incompatible pinouts. The three speed grades isn't so much of an issue now, as the PC800 version dominates these days. Also, I agree with you that "people" (Samsung in particular) is switching unprofitable SDRAM production into profitable RDRAM production. Re: " 1. If the non-RDRAM producing DRAMurai don't begin to sell RDRAM en masse very soon, they may find themselves locked out of this market." The above isn't a prediction, or bold, for that matter. In order for your predictions to give me any pleasure you have to put numbers and dates on them. Re: " 2. Accordingly, look for the large DRAMurai, including possibly Micron, to begin ramping up RDRAM dramatically very soon." Since Micron makes no RDRAM at all presently, how much do you think it would take to make a "dramatic" ramp up? Here's a prediction: Micron makes more than XXX RDRAM chips for December 2001. Re: " 3. RDRAM has fallen from over $1 a MB to approx 60 cents a meg in the last few weeks and this is just on the spot market. God knows what Dell is paying. Once the big RDRAM rampup hits, we should see near price parity with DDR." If by "RDRAM" you really mean the chips, rather than the RIMMs, please give me a link. My figures have shown, and continue to show, that DDR has dropped in price faster than RDRAM for several months. None of this really matters. Right now, the problem for RDRAM is that no one but Intel is making or even designing chipsets for it, and even Intel is working hard on DDR. Mark Edelstone gave up on the RDRAM ramp. Heck, even Rambus' own financial witness at the Infineon trial stated that "the world was going to DDR as the next technology" #reply-15742468 . Why are you still a believer? Sure the continuing P4 ramp will mean RDRAM gets produced, but Intel is working as hard as it can at fixing that problem. They licensed SiS, Serverworks, and ALi to make DDR chipsets for the P4, and VIA says they can make one without a license. -- Carl