Hi richard surckla; Cool! Here's some responses for the ivory tower loser:
Re: "Specifically remind Bilow that even the cream-of-crop, the AMD 760 experienced the problems I predicted on basic physics grounds:" techweb.com
Unfortunately for ptnewell, the article he linked in has absolutely no references to any problems with DDR memory whatsoever. His quote: "But when Micron started ramping volume shipments, the company found that the boards were unable to meet the noise tolerances required by the faster 266-MHz front-side bus speed used by the AMD-760 chipset." shows that the problem was in the FSB, not the DDR interface. The FSB is the interface between the CPU and the chipset, not the DDR SDRAM interface. The fact that ptnewell doesn't know the difference between an FSB problem and a DDR SDRAM bus problem is an indicator of how far over his head he has wandered. The other articles simply repeat the mistake ptnewell made. What was happening here was that a problem with a new FSB bus was being blamed (by the media and by those insufficiently connected to know what an FSB is) on the new memory interface:
Re: "Although he declined to give specifics of these mods, they probably involve either filters and buffers and possibly even the removal of a DIMM slot - precisely what happened to Intel's RDRAM CaminoGate VC820 mobo." This is a good quote, because in retrospect it is clear that it was wrong, 4-DIMM DDR boards are selling now. Compare this to the RDRAM debacle, where 3 years later, there are still no RSL channels going out with more than 2 RIMM slots.
Re: "In Spring 2000, when RDRAM production for desktops CPUs stopped at around 1 million/month, she started a "Rambus is toast" campaign. She thought it was all over then, and RDRAM was not long for the world. In fact RDRAM soon thereafter captured most of the workstation market, and has continued ramping up ever since."
That RDRAM is toast has been well known in the design community since late 1999. It was around November 1999 that it was the last time that design engineers could sit around a table and realistically suggest RDRAM as the next mainstream memory variety. At that time, I predicted that RDRAM designs that were in process would continue to come to production, but that no new RDRAM designs would be starting. This is exactly what has transpired. The workstation wins were already in the pipe in late 1999, they are not new wins. Now it is mid 2001 and there are still zero RDRAM chipset wins outside of Intel, and Intel is supporting DDR as fast as they can. I was right. There was a time when the Rambus supporters looked only to the future, when RDRAM would become the mainstream memory. Now they are looking (accurately) only to the present, and soon they will only be looking at the past. This isn't how wall street works.
Re: "Bilow predicted that DDR would be established as the big winner in desktop PCs by summer 2000. Oops. DDR managed to make it into exactly zero PCs by summer 2000, or even fall 2000, despite many vaporware announcements."
I never made such a post, though there were undoubtedly people who did. In fact, here is what I was saying:
Apr 15, 2000
The first prototype systems will show up this summer, and when the board houses begin to think that they are getting ready to ship volume, they will begin letting them out to reviewers. Tests will be run comparing them with RDRAM at about the same time. Jdassoc will begin reporting DDR compatible motherboards late this summer. It isn't going to be pretty. #reply-13432559 [Okay, I was off by 40 days. This was back in April 2000, so I was wrong by less than 30%. Not terribly bad for prognostication.]
Sep 7, 1999
Hi Alan Bell; Thanks for the response. I am not predicting that Dell will not be able to build a rambus machine. I never predicted that Samsung would be unable to build a rambus chip, for that matter, just that it is a lot more trouble than SDRAM or DDR.
My guess is that Dell will begin shipping rambus based machines soon, as announced. My only note is that this whole direct rambus for high end computers kick has had a lot of unpredicted delays in the past, so investors should not be surprised by delays in the future. Rambus seems to be priced for perfection, taking a look at the royalty numbers, and making conservative estimates of percentage shipments.
I have no doubt that the big players will have the advantage on building rambus boards. I don't think that the little board houses and small companies are going to concentrate on rambus, but they won't have to. Imagine having to do a rambus desing using Orcad, for instance, I doubt they'll try it. It is obvious to me that a lot of the second tier usages of DRAM will go to SDRAM or DDR because of the complicated interface requirements of RDRAM. I think that is probably what the Astrophysicist quoted on this thread recently was on to. (The one that Dan3 defended just a little too strongly IMHO). #reply-11173198
See #reply-14692025 for a more complete list of what I was saying about DDR shipments.
-- Carl
P.S. I think that it's amusing that ptnewell assumes that I am female, LOL!!! This is an indication that he is drifting into ad hominem attacks rather than trying to stick to the issues. In addition, he may have a few prejudice issues. I wonder what his university administration does to professors who don't like women...
Also, I don't search Yahoo records, the link was from SI, where pretty much all of ptnewell's garbage gets reposted. I was looking for something else, but found that, and it was too funny to pass up.
And hey, how's that brilliant investment going, pt? What, a new 52-week low??? |
