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To: Estephen who wrote (75150)	6/29/2001 10:25:11 AM
From: Estephen	Respond to of 93625

RDRAM Technology Myths and Realities The explosive demands from the Internet plus high-performance business and consumer products are driving the need for more bandwidth. As processor technology has crossed the 1 GHz boundary, the bottleneck in system design has frequently shifted to how fast data can be transferred between chips. Direct Rambus DRAM (RDRAM) technology offers higher memory bus throughput speeds to address the needs for bandwidth. Here are some things you may or may not know about Intel and Rambus technology. Myth: RDRAM is expensive and will always be more expensive than SDRAM or DDR. Reality: RDRAM prices are falling rapidly. From Q2 ’00 to Q2 ’01, the price for a 128 MB RIMM (non-ECC) has come down over 65%. Samsung, the world’s leading supplier of RDRAM, projects only a $20 difference between 128 MB of PC133 SDRAM and PC800 RDRAM by the end of 2001 for large OEM volume. Prices will continue to fall in 2002. “We think RDRAM will be very price-competitive with DDR memory. If the volumes are high enough, then it may be the same price, and if RDRAM volumes are significantly higher, then it could be even cheaper.” – Geoff Hughes, Samsung senior vice president of sales and marketing as quoted in EETimes, 3/29/2001 Myth: RDRAM has no real performance benefits. Reality: Dual-channel RDRAM provides 3.2 GB/second of memory bandwidth to the system. Combined with the Intel ® Pentium ® 4 processor’s 300% increase in system bus bandwidth compared to the Intel ® Pentium ® III processor, today’s RDRAM platforms provide noticeable performance benefits. On applications that are not bandwidth con-strained, such as word processing, RDRAM may not differ in performance compared to other memory technologies. However, on intense applications that tax system bandwidth, such as XML-based Internet tools, media encoding/decoding, streaming technologies and 3D graphics, the Pentium 4 processor with RDRAM provides a superior user experience. Myth: Memory vendors are not building RDRAM. Reality: Memory vendors are most definitely building RDRAM, and they are ramping production at tremendous rates. “Samsung Semiconductor Inc., San Jose, Calif., Monday said it has exceeded $1 billion in revenue to date from its Direct Rambus DRAM (RDRAM) shipments. The Korean chipmaker reiterated that it is expanding RDRAM production to achieve 10 million units a month during this half and 20 million units a month during the second half of the year. The company also repeated its previous announcement that a new, less costly, four-memory bank RDRAM chip will enter production in the second half. The new chip is expected to be 20% cheaper to make than the current 32-bank RDRAM.” – EBN, 3/19/2001 “Japanese chip and PC maker Toshiba Corp said on Friday it will more than triple its output of Rambus DRAM chips by September while cutting commodity DRAM production, and NEC Corp said it is eyeing a similar move. A Toshiba spokesman said the company would boost its output of Direct Rambus DRAMs, which use technology from Rambus Inc that speeds up memory chip performance, to eight million units per month by September from the current 2.3 million units, based on a 128 MB equivalent.” – Yahoo Finance, 2/9/2001

To: Estephen who wrote (75150)	6/29/2001 10:25:49 AM
From: Estephen	Respond to of 93625

Myth: RDRAM has no benefits to the PC industry. Reality: RDRAM delivers high bandwidth with about one-third the memory controller pins required for DDR. Fewer pins help reduce the cost of chipsets and motherboards, and make motherboard routing less complex. In addition, lower pin-count technologies help OEMs avoid adding board layers or dropping features, such as PCI connectors. Myth: RDRAM systems are inherently more expensive to build than DDR systems. Reality: Initially, RDRAM systems were indeed more expensive to build than established SDRAM platforms. However, as RDRAM volumes continue to increase, supporting component and moth-erboard costs decrease. In fact, Intel predicts that in 2002, a dual-memory channel RDRAM motherboard BOM will cost at most $2 more than a single channel DDR design. The high pin efficiency of RDRAM enables a trend of reduced costs with time. These facts, combined with the ability to support full memory bandwidth on a single memory chip, means that the industry can move to both smaller form factors and less expensive systems by using RDRAM in next generation platforms. Myth: RDRAM will not be available for upgrades in 2-3 years. Reality: Intel will continue to drive RDRAM platforms in the future, which will create demand for more RDRAM output from memory manufacturers going forward. Myth: Intel has a contract that obligates them to sell RDRAM. Reality: Intel does license intellectual property from Rambus Corporation, but is under no legal obligation to sell RDRAM technology. Intel uses and promotes RDRAM because we believe it provides the best performance for our customers, as well as architectural advantages for the PC industry. Myth: Intel collects royalties on RDRAM sales. Reality: Intel does not collect royalties on RDRAM memory technology. Myth: Intel has rights to be single supplier of RDRAM compatible memory controllers. Reality: Rambus Corporation makes RDRAM memory controller specifications available to any memory controller supplier in order to produce RDRAM-compatible chipsets. As RDRAM chipsets enter mainstream PC systems, it is expected that other chipset vendors will offer RDRAM-compatible chipsets. Myth: If Rambus Corporation loses its pending court cases, RDRAM production will cease. Reality: Regardless of the outcome of the various legal actions, demand and investment in RDRAM will go forward in the future. RDRAM memory is designed into many high-volume consumer electronic devices today, such as game consoles, HDTV, and digital set-top boxes, in addition to PCs. This creates demand. Memory manufacturers have also invested billions of dollars in equipment to build RDRAM, ensuring that supply capability is in place for the future.

To: Estephen who wrote (75150)	6/29/2001 10:42:49 AM
From: Win Smith	Respond to of 93625

Myth:Intel has a contract that obligates them to sell RDRAM Reality: Intel does license intellectual property from Rambus Corporation,but is under no legal obligation to sell RDRAM technology.Intel uses and promotes RDRAM because we believe it provides the best performance for our customers,as well as architectural advantages for the PC industrie. Er, I guess in some marketese sense that statement could be parsed as not totally a lie, but there's this document on file with the SEC: A new Section 4.9 is added to the License Agreement as follows: "4.9 Additional Intel Obligations. ---------------------------- (a) Intel will use its continuing best efforts in marketing, public relations, and engineering to make the Rambus-D DRAM the primary DRAM for PC main memory applications through December 31, 2002; and (b) Intel will communicate to the top (10) DRAM manufacturers, Intel's intention to support the Rambus-D Interface Technology in its integrated circuits for low end workstation, performance desktop, and basic PC platforms." sec.gov Somehow, I don't feel much like delving into the rest of your nice compellation of Intel flackery when the first point seems so obviously bogus.