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

To: unclewest who wrote (16015)	2/19/1999 6:42:00 PM
From: REH	Respond to of 93625

Rambus Shares Jump 16% After Reassuring Comments By Analyst Dow Jones Online News, Friday, February 19, 1999 at 18:34 NEW YORK -(Dow Jones)- Shares Of Rambus Inc. shot up 16% Friday after Morgan Stanley Dean Witter reassured investors Friday in a conference about Rambus's ties to semiconductor giant Intel Corp. The Mountain View company's stock (RMBS) rose $9.75, to $71 on Nasdaq volume of 3.6 million, compared with average daily volume of 879,000 shares. The stock had fallen since February 2, however, when its shares traded as high as $82.25. Santa Clara, Calif.-based Intel is expected to give an update on its design plans with Rambus next Tuesday at the Intel Developers Forum. Meanwhile, Morgan Stanley analyst Mark Edelstone said in Friday's call that he sees no change in Rambus's long-term design relationship with Intel (INTC). In a research note, earlier this month, Edelstone said recent selling pressure on Rambus' shares stemmed from "a slip in Intel's 820 chipset schedule and concerns that the schedule has slipped again." Intel encountered normal engineering problems while preparing the 820 chipset, code named Camino, for production, Edelstone said. He added, however, that Intel (INTC) is "on track" to unveil a chipset that will support the 600 megahertz versions of Direct Rambus DRAMs by March 31. Technical hurdles, however, may cause Intel to delay delivery of an 820 chipset that supports the Direct Rambus DRAM spec of 800 megahertz by three months or so, he added. Now there are concerns that schedule may slip further until September. Intel has spent more than two years promoting the PC industry's switch to Direct Rambus DRAM (dynamic access random memory) chips as the new main memory in PCs. Edelstone said in his note earlier this month that the company is highly motivated to solve any technical issues and "ramp the Rambus memory architecture into the mainstream PC market in the second half of 1999." Analysts see Rambus moving to establish a dominant market share in DRAM chips, as Intel helps make its DRAM technology, which it codeveloped with Rambus, the de facto industry standard. Intel's Camino chipset enables a PC's main microprocessor to use the Rambus memory. In his earlier research note, Edelstone predicted that Rambus' architecture will begin to dominate the DRAM market by 2002 and 2003. Christopher Grimes (201) 938-5253 Copyright (c) 1999 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

To: unclewest who wrote (16015)	2/19/1999 7:34:00 PM
From: Dave B	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 93625

Uncle, Good find. I said it before -- designing by consortium will never overtake a well-focused, driven company: "The SLDRAM effort entered the fray relatively late, and, partly because of its committee-bound structure, never caught up with Rambus Inc." Also, the article says that a 266Mhz DDR 256Mb chip will be available at the end of 2000. So let me understand this, they'll provide (assuming a 4 byte wide data path) a 1.06 GBs transfer rate beginning in 1.5 to 2 years, versus a 1.2 GBs transfer rate in a 600MHz Camino available in 3 or so months and 1.6 GBs in an 800Mhz Camino in roughly 6 months. Can you say "waste of time and money"? By then, the cost premium for RDRAM will be non-existent when you factor in the cost savings for the smaller pin count. And by then Intel will have developed support for multiple processors (if, as someone claimed, that's a problem currently). So here's my prediction: By late 2000, the DDR consortium will have gone the way of all flesh. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Thanks again, uncle, you made my weekend. (That, plus a 9 3/4 increase in the stock price. And I'll try to be more accurate in my predictions in the future.) Dave B