Hi all; Rambus' annual meeting notes from February 9, 2000. Here's the complete and total lies included:
Annual Meeting Notes
Dave B, SI -> Rambusite.com, February 2000
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Market Share Forecast
1999 tiny
2000 10%
2001 30%
2002 50%
2003 60%
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A little later in his presentation, he claimed that if the PS2 had used SDRAM or DDR, the number of pins on the CPU for memory access would have gone from the ~140 for 2 RDRAM channels to ~200 to ~400, requiring 16 SDRAM chips or 8 DDR chips. They estimate that this would have added $30 to $50 to the cost of making the PS2. [Bilow: This is a lie. If it were true, then how did nVidia get the X-Box to work with only four DDR chips, and at a higher bandwidth than the PS/2?]
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DDR - is evolutionary from SDRAM (though later he said it was not evolutionary because you couldn't use SDRAMs in a DDR motherboard). [Bilow: This is a lie. The truth is that there are plenty of motherboards out there that accept either SDRAM or DDR memory. On the other hand, there are zero motherboards that accept either RDRAM or SDRAM.] In the interim this will be used in servers, which he called a niche market. [Bilow: Turns out that DDR is the mainstream, and, according to Intel VPs, RDRAM is the niche. Did Rambus know this in February 2000? Of course they did. Did they tell their shareholders? Heck no, they lied.] As for DDR in PCs, RDRAM has a faster per pin rate and is scaleable since you can add RDRAM channels more easily (no change to the story). [Bilow: Another lie, DDR beat RDRAM in PCs.] In Value PCs, he called it a myth that you needed RDRAM only for performance and used the PS2 as the example. You can get the full bandwidth of the technology from a single chip, which will be less expensive than 8 or 16 chips. [Bilow: Another lie. If it were true, then what happened to Timna, and how come there aren't any single channel RDRAM chipsets for the PC?] He also showed a line drawing of a TI DDR DIMM which had 11 additional support chips on the DIMM for buffering, latching, et cetera. Lots of chips! [Bilow: Obviously he was showing a schematic for registered DDR, which is used only in servers. But that's exactly where he already admitted that DDR had a niche. In other words, another lie from Rambus.] With RDRAM in production now, with over 50 controller design wins, and with DDR at least a year behind RDRAM, Harmon called it ludicrous that anyone would forecast that DDR would outship RDRAM in 2000 (take THAT, Sherry!). [Bilow: Here it is late 2001 and DDR is out shipping RDRAM by around 5 to 1. Why didn't Rambus tell their shareholders that this was going to happen and that Rambus was going to have to sue to get DDR royalties in order to survive? Their own analysis undoubtedly came up with the same results that everybody else in the industry's did, so they knew where the industry was going. But instead of telling their shareholders the truth, they lied, and let them believe that DDR didn't have a chance.]
Advanced DRAM Technology Consortium - he said that this is an admission that the SDRAM/DDR technology is at the end of its life. [Bilow: Every DRAM technology becomes obsolete a few years after it comes out. This has been going on for 20 years, and Rambus acts like it's a big deal. This lie was only effective on people who were either unfamiliar with the industry, or just plain not thinking. The truth is that Intel's VPs are now saying that ADT will be the next memory standard after DDR. This was well known throughout the industry at the time of this meeting, and Rambus knew it. But instead of telling the truth to their shareholders, they lied. Wait till the class action lawyers get a hold of the e-mails and papers that Rambus management were privately handing around at this time. Rambus is going to fry.] The consortium is targeting 2003 as the date to release their new technology. That gives RDRAM four years to penetrate the market before they even show up. [Bilow: The fact is that everybody's roadmaps show that there will be no RDRAM in PCs in 2003. See, for example, #reply-16777956 #reply-16816952 and #reply-16773026 ] And once they do show up, they are going to have to be a leap ahead of RDRAM to convince everyone to put in place a new infrastructure to support the technology. [Bilow: Another lie. DDR was already a leap ahead of RDRAM. That's why it takes two RDRAM channels to equal one DDR channel.] Also, if they try to implement any technology that's packet-based, they'll probably run into Rambus patents. [Bilow: Another lie. Rambus management knew that their patents were based on fraudulent activity with respect to JEDEC, and even without that, they knew that their patents were shakey as far as covering later technology.] Finally, Harmon pointed out that consortiums have not worked in the past very well. Tate, in the Q&A session, supported that statement be saying that the biggest problem with consortiums is goal congruence. [Bilow: A lie - if JEDEC were ineffective, then how come almost every memory technology is built to JEDEC standards?] Rambus has been talking to the members of the ADT and they found that the manufacturers have different objectives for the consortium. This will make it hard to accomplish anything. He pointed out that one of the members even said that they expect it to take a year just to get the group infrastructure defined and in place. [Bilow: Highly likely to be a lie, but no way to prove it yet.]
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Rambus - Phase II
Tate took over next. He described Phase II as:
- Solidify position in PC and consumer digital video markets [Bilow: They lost here, and it was obvious that they'd already lost in Febraury 2000. The majority of design wins in this area went to SDRAM, with DDR a runner-up.]
- Push Rambus standard by advancing their technology lead [Bilow: A lie. DDR was the leading technology, not RDRAM.]
- Apply the standard to new markets (e.g. communications) [Bilow: They lost here as well.]
- License their IP for non-compatible uses (e.g. SDRAM, DDR) [Bilow: A lie. They never had patents to cover "non-compatible" uses.]
- Leverage the IP business model [Bilow: The heck does that mean?]
RDRAM Cost Differential
Yes, RDRAM is more expensive. Tate says that it's currently 40% more expensive to produce RDRAM based on the feedback they're getting from the manufacturers. Pricing, on the other hand, is completely supply/demand driven. The following table shows the relative breakout of the incremental costs of RDRAM over SDRAM in 2000, and the expected improvements for 2001 (as an example it costs twice as much, or 100% more, to package the RDRAM today as it costs to package SDRAM):
2000 2001
Die size 25% 10%
Test 55% 1-2%
Package 100% 10%
Total 40% 10%
[Bilow: Here it is late 2001. Was Rambus telling the truth here? Of course not!]
Rambus IP
Rambus' fundamental patents on high bandwidth memory subsystems date from 1990. [Bilow: From the trial result, it turns out that this wasn't exactly true. Did Rambus say "we may have patents that cover high bandwidth memory"? Heck no, they out and out lied to their shareholders about their patents.] Rambus is willing to license the technology for non-RDRAM use at reasonable rates. [Bilow: A lie. Rambus' rates are much higher than similar patent rates in the DRAM industry. In fact, it was Rambus' objective to obtain as much patent royalties from a single patent application in 1990 as Texas Instruments gets from their thousands of ground breaking patents. It was ridiculous.]
Is embedded DRAM a competitor?
Not really. Right now you can't embed much. Three years ago, the forecasts said that embedded memory would be much bigger, but it's not. Beyond 2010, we don't know. [Bilow: If embedded DRAM isn't a competitor, then how come Nintendo chose embedded DRAM for the next game console, kicking Rambus out of that business? If you go and read the company's SEC documents, it's very clear that they acknowledge that embedded is a competitor.]
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Why is there such resistance from the DRAM manufacturers?
It's a competitive game, and they don't want Samsung to win. It's more important that the PC company executives are lined up, since the DRAM guys will make whatever gets ordered. The PC execs are saying that RDRAM is a major, and growing, part of our product mix. [Bilow: This is a lie. What the PC execs were saying was that their customers were afraid of RDRAM, saw it as way too expensive, saw it as a temporary niche product, and saw it as unreliable. If RDRAM had been the solution that everyone was looking for, Rambus would have won. As of February 2000, it was obvious that they had lost, and I believe that company documents will prove that their management knew this.] The interests of the DRAM manufacturers and systems companies are in conflict - the system people want fast, low-priced, commodity-like memory, whereas the DRAM manufacturers want a differentiated, fractionalized market. [Bilow: This is true, but it's the big problem for Rambus. DDR is the commodity, not RDRAM.]
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rambusite.com
A substantial fraction of the company's statements at their shareholder's meeting were lies. Not only that, but their management knew that they were lying, and this will likely come out in court (with Rambus' internal documents proving it).
I can hardly wait to see what the class action lawyers dig up when they start asking these guys questions.
-- Carl |
