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To: Jeff Jordan who wrote (7621)	1/26/1998 9:42:00 PM
From: Ibexx	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 152472

Jeff and thread, H&Q issued an update on RMBS this morning, and I got a copy of it. What I will do is to skip the "target price" and "rating" part, but share with the thread on what they have said re. the recent rumors--presumably negative--about RDRAM. Rumor #1: Die size penalty associated with Rambus may slow down RDRAM adoption: We (H&Q) estimate that on average a Direct RDRAM is about 10% larger than a conventional SDRAM but deivers 3x the memory performance. This die size penalty ranges between various RDRAM manufacturers depending on the quality of their respecrtive process. For instance, a leading DRAM vendor with tight process metal layers may only experience an 8% increase in die size when implementing RDRAM. However, in our opinion, from a system-level perspective the Rambus solution requires fewer chips relative to SDRAM configurations due to the Rambus-based DRAM high bandwidth and low pin count. Although SDRAM manufacturers have been accelerating die size shrinks in an effort to improve their cost structure, we do not believe that this has caused RDRAM die to become relatively larger. Further, we believe Rambus is continually engaged in die size reduction and process tuning programs with many of its partners. Rumor #2: Power dissipation may slow down RDRAM adoption: We believe this was an issue in the past; however, at Intel's Developer Forum Octover, it was illustrated that PC desttop systems implementing 64Mb Direct RDRAM technology running at 800 MHz dissipated 4.3 Watts compared to SDRAM running at 100 MHz dissipating 4.5 Watts. Therefore, Rambus based DRAM provides 300% more memory bandwidth and consumes 5% less power. Further, in botebook PCs, the discrepancy was even greater as RDRAMs dissipated nearly 30% less power than SDRAMs. Rumor #3: Next-generation Nintendo64 platform will not include Rabus The N64 game platform is currently the primary contributor to Rambus' royalty revenue. We believe the company has a very strong relation with Nintendo. In the current N64 platform, we estimate that Rambus-based ICs directly allow for a $24 BOM savings versus the competing Sony Playstation. Further, we believe that the switching costs to alternative DRAM technology for Nintendo are extremely high given N64's highly integrated, system level approach. While there always exist a risk that a redesign of theN64 platform will not include Rambus-based ICs, we do not feel it consitutes cause for extreme concern given the lack of: 1) concrete evidence that this is indeed true, and 2) visibility into the timing of release of the next generation N64 platforms (which we believe willbe as late as 2H:CY99 by which time we exect Intel's Rambus-based microprocessors to be shipping, offsetting the incremental loss from N64-2). _______ As always, please read at your own risk. Ibexx