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Politics : RAMTRONIAN's Cache Inn -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: wily who wrote (8336)	7/17/2002 10:13:54 PM
From: NightOwl	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 14464

Wily I may certainly be wrong, but I think that 2500 wafers per month is all the FRAM production in the entire known universe. eetimes.com eetimes.com They were only supposed to have started production at 0.35 microns in 9/01. And I assume its possible that they may have ramped further than 2500 wafers a month by now. But my guess is that they will not want to invest too much more in their process technology until they know what cost savings TXN or IFX/Toshiba come up with. The 30 million units shipped prior to that time were at 0.50. I don't recall any comments about wafer size at Iwate and you may be right about the size but I am sure that during the Q&A at a conference call at the end of '01 or earlier this year Staunton said the royalty rate was around 2%. He has fairly consistently downplayed royalty revenues since he's come on board. I don't think he and our Board Chairman see eye to eye on this, but Staunton acknowledges that RMTR will get the royalties. He comes across as fearful of being lumped into the same category as The Bus Company, which is OK with me. Of course Fujitsu may still be selling/producing the 0.50 chips for the card market on some line. They spent a pretty penny to get the door open and I am sure they don't want to have to retool a line as soon as they get it ramped up. Which is why I think you are wrong about The Holy Grail Patent. I think TI is looking to have a test chip or samples at the end of this year with sample production in '03. There have been lots of "hints" at what's going on: "Our program with TI provides Ramtron with a path to the Flash memory market - the largest nonvolatile memory market in the world," Staunton added. "Ramtron expects the TI program to yield an advanced FRAM memory cell and architecture that will be capable of competing with and outperforming Flash memory technology. Ramtron's goal is to co-develop a production worthy, 0.13-micron FRAM process that can establish FRAM as the ideal nonvolatile memory solution on a density, feature and cost for benefit basis." ramtron.com TI has novel, but unpublished, circuit designs, process modules and architectures leading it to RF CMOS with as little as one or two additional mask steps over its digital logic process, Krenik said. Some of TI's ideas parallel those of Cambridge Silicon Radio, he added. "This level of integration allows us to penetrate new applications and new cost levels," with both high-end data phones and new low-end, voice-only models, said Gilles Delfassy, general manager of TI's wireless division. The technology will quickly spread across TI's product line, he said, spanning second-generation, 2.5G and 3G phones and lowering power consumption as much as 40 percent in some cases. * Krenik of TI said integrating flash and the baseband will take four to six additional mask steps, pushing the device out of mainstream markets and into specialty ones. Rather than integrate flash, TI is conducting research with Ramtron International Corp. on whether ferroelectric RAM can be integrated on the baseband. eetimes.com The fight between TI and everyone else is not new. eetimes.com They have been after DSP sales in TI territory for quite some time: eetimes.com Frankly I would be shocked if this had nothing to do with INTC, MOT, etc. et al, trying to get MRAM or some other competing technology off the ground. And from where I sit it has a lot to do with our licensee's who don't have a Holy Grail Process Patent** sitting and waiting to see if TI or Toshiba/IFX can do it. You're talking hundreds of millions in wasted investment if you ramp at 0.25 with technology that's going to be blown away in a month. It is dangerous playing at the cutting edge if you don't have a sharp knife. <Hoo Hoo> Go back and check reply# 8314. That Patent wasn't born in March. TI started developing a ferroelectric memory at least as early as 1997. In 1998 they sold their EEPROM and DRAM biz to MU while the selling was good. Fight it if you must Wily but there is a "plan" at work here and it has FRAM "quickly spreading" across a goodly chunk of TI's ample product portfolio when the time is right. Why do you think they are keeping their process designs "unpublished?" The ability to cut mask steps, improve performance and do ferro on ferro in multi-flavors to boot is an incredible advantage. Imagine what the industry will say if TXN does to them in nonvolatile what they did to them in DRAM. <Haaa Hooo> What do you think we're dealing with here? ...IBM? <Hoo Hoo> 0\|0 Writing on the walls... with a very thin film.