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

To: Roads End who wrote (6284)	8/15/1998 12:01:00 PM
From: MileHigh	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 93625

Some "fun" reading for RMBS bulls! I believe from ZDNet news...a piece on PC systems and the future... MileHigh >>The 800-MHz Bus Notwithstanding these developments, it appears certain that the type of memory that will replace 100-MHz SDRAM in PC systems will be Direct RDRAM. This shift will occur in mid-to-late 1999. RDRAM memory is not new, though. Designed by Rambus, it's currently used in devices ranging from video games and graphics cards to workstations and Ethernet switches. Direct RDRAM is an enhancement of the original RDRAM specification developed by Rambus and Intel for use as PC main memory. Why is Direct RDRAM the heir apparent to 100-MHz SDRAM? First, it's the one Intel has chosen. And given the company's increasing dominance as the manufacturer of the building blocks of the PC platform, Intel can certainly influence the type of memory the industry will use going forward. But practically speaking, Intel's support is almost incidental, because Direct RDRAM appears to be the only architecture that can provide the performance necessary for the next generation of processors. Equally important, it offers enough headroom to support several more years of processor innovation. Here's how. Direct RDRAM uses a relatively narrow interface, only 8 bits wide, called the Rambus Channel. However, the interface runs at the extremely high clock frequency of 800 MHz. Direct RDRAM uses two of these channels, yielding a whopping available bandwidth of 1.6 GBps. Adding more channels can provide still more bandwidth. So that the narrow Rambus memory can interface with the wide 64-bit data path of PC processors, a new type of memory module is under development--RIMM, or Rambus In-Line Memory Module. RIMMs have the same physical dimensions as DIMMs, which means vendors can more easily update motherboard design to support Direct RDRAM memory. However, the two devices are not compatible, and vendors will likely prevent users from interchanging the two (probably by means of a notch key). Intel says that the chip sets it will ship in 1999 will support Direct RDRAM memory. What's not yet clear is whether the chip set will support both RDRAM and SDRAM memory in the same system--which would let vendors build systems that include one or the other type of memory. At press time, Intel would not say. Our guess is that Intel's chip set won't support both memory types, because it would make the chip sets too large and too expensive.

To: Roads End who wrote (6284)	8/15/1998 4:24:00 PM
From: mauser96	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 93625

I understand that Rambus is getting royalties of about 1.5% on average. It's likely that not all companies pay the same rate. Rambus is in a tricky situation, too low royalties and they don't make much money, too high and there's a big incentive to find or develop alternate technology. It's been my observation over the years that big companies sometimes suffer from a "not invented here" attitude and sometimes spend far more to develop a substitute than if they had just gone ahead and purchased a license. IMHO, establishing a standard is the critical factor here, so I would expect that Rambus will in the long run get somewhere between 1% and 1.5%. If they are negotiating the royalty with each customer, they are not going to admit to any specific figure.