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

To: Jonas who wrote (5186)	4/15/1998 1:10:00 AM
From: NightOwl	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 14464

Hi Jonas, and All, At the risk of saying something "serious" amidst the dark humor of my fellow bottom fishers, I would like to point out that there is now and will always be (in my lifetime:-) a market for 4Mb and 16Mb DRAM chips. They are the nickles and pennies of the semiconductor world. Everyone talks about getting rid of them, but there are simply too many designs and thingys that simply do not need and could not use 64, 128, 256, etc... densities. Engineers may be forced to use higher densities if they can't get 4Mb. But they will rail against that as long as 4Mb are cheaper and smaller than their big brothers. It will be a market niche for someone as long as the some manufacturer can find a way to earn a profit on them. But we must remember that we do not own a manufacturer. We are a design house and will remain so for the mid-term at least. As RMTR has said aside from the soon to be released 16Mb ESDRAM, there are 64 and 256Mb densities at some stage of design. Thus, I presume, they are 24 or 36 months from production... if someone cares to make them. Which I guess is my round about way of saying that RMTR's problem is more complicated than the over-production sickness that periodically sends the Mfg.'s to their plant closings and Reorganization Plans. Their task is to increase licensee production despite these market ups and downs. They have never experienced the "market glut" phase. Since the termination of the Ocean contract they have avoided design wins in the crowded PC market. And with IBM being the #1 producer we could not expect them to ever have sufficient product to compete in that broad based market. So they have sought out the infrastructure designs. Routers, hubs, DSP's and all those other products we end users know so little about. With the quality of their chips this keeps them safe enough from the market gyrations. But it also keeps the income anemic. For it is only in the sexy high volume commodity areas that RMTR's technical advantages can be fully exploited by the mindless advertising of PC Sources, PC Mag, PC World, etc... After all who even knows what's inside a Raid tower? Besides Mark I mean. Well I guess Logan does but he has moved away from the INN apparently. :-) It will be very interesting to see whether the Siemens and DEC Alpha deals are the harbingers of a real capacity to compete in the high end market. The high end computing/server market is getting very close to the "commodity" business that RMTR has "avoided". I am betting that this avoidance has not been so much a matter of choice as it was simply a lack of production capacity. The chip business seems inherently a commodity business and if you want to be in that business you might as well admit it. INTC is trying to change that by gaining a certain hegemony if not monopoly. Dallas Semi, MCHP and many others have tried the niche route. But the commodity bug has jumped up and bitten them all. So when people tell me they are not competing for "commodity" contracts I wince. But I also recognize that if I were in their shoes I would be doing the same thing. Until, I had some production volume anyway. :-) Which, interestingly enough brings me around to this vicious Hitachi rumor spreading through the smokers lounge of this old world establishment. Hitachi, without the money printing assistance of its central bank, will never own RMTR or any of its appendages. But given a few years of aging, and possibly a change in management, I could see INTC making a run for our stock certificates. God forbid it should be IBM or Siemens, its evil European cousin. But INTC is moving at a rather brisk pace down the road of ever growing POWER HOG CHIP. And if I read the geometric progression of my electric bill correctly (and I think I do :-) the Giant of Silicone Valley will have to come to grips with the less is more factor sooner or later. When they do, ferroelectrics will be there begging for implementation as on CPU memory and ESDRAM's low power - high speed capacity will also be a handy solution. And if MSFT has taught INTC anything, it is that it is better to buy and than to research. Besides, if they wait too long National Semi will beat them to it. :-) There I said it. This will have to keep you occupied for awhile Neil. I have a STLRAM@ DRAFT to conduct. :-) 0\|0

To: Jonas who wrote (5186)	4/19/1998 7:06:00 PM
From: Jonas	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 14464

Hi Everyone !! been away for a couple of days...nice to see some lovely really lovely discussion going on...Re RMTR management...I think management is good...think that my own the euphoria over rmtr L/T prospects have made me go in too early but would I do it now again..YES..as far as product sales are concerned...only now with the availability from Rohm can rmtr really start selling...that wasn't the case before...all smart investors should have known that...I know that now...similarely EDRAM...it didn't conform to prevailing standards and there was no chipset support...there is now...plus Siemens - the fact that DEC chose ESDRAM was a strong technical endorsement...and the demand for rmtr's lower density products is IMO only a hint of what's going to follow once they've caught up in density...