Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

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

To: hdl who wrote (80419)	12/22/2001 1:36:44 PM
From: Jdaasoc	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 93625

its price difference with ddr has shrunk from $118 to $25 in 9 months? Using 2 128 MB RIMMs vs 1 256 DDR DIMM the price difference is a scant $12 ($60 vs $48) on pricewatch. I can't predict what they will be next week but I see memory prices going up on average since so many manufacturers have curtailing production recently and demand from business consumers has been temporally delayed by this recession.

To: hdl who wrote (80419)	12/23/2001 12:26:59 AM
From: Bilow	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 93625

Hi hdl; Re: "DDR prices have bounced off a low of two months ago after an incredible slide. Doesn't this help rdram as its price difference with ddr has shrunk from $118 to $25 in 9 months?" Heck yeah! Of course it does! My (repeatedly posted) guess is that the premiums (in terms of percentage) will stabilize at somewhere in the neighborhood of RDRAM at 50% over SDRAM, and DDR at 0% over SDRAM, but even a 50% premium is enough to keep RDRAM out of mainstream memory contention. The mainstream memory fight is about what is cheapest per bit. The reason for this is that memory is valuable mostly because of what it can store, secondarily according to how fast it can be read or written, and only tertiarily according to how many pins it uses. So the mainstream memory is the cheapest one, the one that offers the largest number of bits per dollar. RDRAM pricing doesn't matter much anymore. Everyone in the industry knows that Intel got beat on the RDRAM vs SDRAM / DDR SDRAM war. Everyone knows that RDRAM is going to be an expensive niche type memory. Even Intel VPs are saying that RDRAM is dead. DDR production is already about 5x RDRAM production, so the volume advantage is all on DDR's side. The large, and increasing, number of memory makers that are putting out DDR as opposed to the small, and decreasing, number making RDRAM will cause the price figures to slide in favor of DDR by around 2 months from now. (The delay is due to the DRAM production cycle period of about 3 months.) Look for decent DDR pricing (as compared to SDRAM) by late February. DDR won't replace SDRAM until the price of DDR gets to around 15% over SDRAM. That's still some time off. But the real issue (for this thread) is RDRAM production. It's already clear that RDRAM production is in decline due to the massive replacement of RDRAM PCs with SDRAM when Intel went to the 845 with SDRAM. It took a couple months after Intel introduced the 845 with SDRAM before RDRAM was (largely) driven out of the mainstream market. Similarly, it will take DDR a few months to (largely) drive RDRAM out of the workstation market, but because RDRAM is still faster in certain applications, I think there will still be RDRAM based workstations until a few months after Intel ships their P4 chipset that uses dual DDR channels. -- Carl