To: tinkershaw who wrote (74933 ) 6/26/2001 3:31:27 AM From: Bilow Read Replies (2) | Respond to Hi tinkershaw; Your post shows your confused thinking:Every other designer of RDRAM is either insignificant, or is now using DDR. Every one. No exceptions. " I wrote this in the context of "designer" being design engineers who use the memory, not the memory makers. The PS/2 will be around for years, as will at least some use at Intel, and this gives Samsung something to do with RDRAM designs for several years.Yes, Samsung does dabble in DDR, although they have publically stated they are putting aside DDR production to make more room for RDRAM. Kind of forget about that one? " True, Samsung has said that. But you should note that: (a) RDRAM is a lot more expensive right now than DDR, so since Samsung is the cheapest producer of RDRAM, of course they convert over to the stuff, what do you expect? And why is Samsung only putting such a small percentage of their production into RDRAM? Why not all of it? (b) What is important for the price of RMBS is future RDRAM production, current production is not significant. And with regard to future production, even Samsung says that by 2003 DDR will be about the same magnitude as RDRAM . Right now, DDR is only supported well for AMD chipsets. Intel has 80% of the market. DDR chipsets for the P4 come out soon , and a lot of people think they're going to get a lot of use. That will alter the DDR vs RDRAM production enough to make Samsung bring their DDR lines back up, likely.Company's are dropping RDRAM, which is profitable to produce ... " RDRAM is profitable to produce, but the companies that are dropping RDRAM aren't producing it. They're using it. The problem with RDRAM is not that it is unprofitable to make, it is the far worse problem that using it cuts into the profits of the company using it. Wait till Intel gives their next earnings report, and compare that to AMD.... Intel's most aggressive product launch to date ... " Funny, Wall Street says that the P4 launch is disappointing . And Intel has had to drop P4 prices to amazingly low values, given the large size of the silicon, in order to move the product that they've been able to.... and moving all that investment in a profitable product, into DDR ... " Again, you're confusing the outlook of the memory makers with the memory users. RDRAM is being dropped by the memory users, not the memory makers . The memory makers love RDRAM because it's another expensive, profitable (for them) niche memory. The memory users hate RDRAM because it's expensive. The memory users already have had their way, DDR is relatively inexpensive. That's what memory users want, cheap memory.A product that most sources state it being sold for less than cost? " Again, whether the product is profitable for the memory makers or not doesn't effect whether it is selected as a standard memory or not. The users select the standard memory by building products that use it. You've seen every x86 chipset company come out with DDR chipsets. Every one, no exceptions. These are the users of memory, and users choose the cheapest memory. If it happens to be sold at a price below that which some of the memory makers can be profitable at, this is not some incredible surprise, it happens every few years, and all it means is that some of the memory makers are forced to cut back on production . The fact that RDRAM hasn't been effected nearly as much as DDR by the SDRAM memory price collapse is an indication that RDRAM is not a mainstream memory. The mainstream memory types tend to be cheap, and to trade in a group, on a per bit level.
