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

To: MileHigh who wrote (16649)	2/24/1999 10:59:00 PM
From: MileHigh	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 93625

(UPDATE) Rambus Says Its Technology Will Be In PC Memories Later This Year Dow Jones Online News, Wednesday, February 24, 1999 at 16:51 SAN FRANCISCO -(Dow Jones)- Chip-technology developer Rambus Inc. announced at an industry gathering late Tuesday that it will introduce its technology to the so-called personal computer main memory market this year. Gary Harmon, the company's vice president and chief financial officer, said during a presentation at the BancBoston Robertson Stephens technology conference Tuesday that Intel Corp. chips using Rambus technology will be released later this year. Rambus's technology, designed to enhance the performance of memory chips, is supported by semiconductor giant Intel (INTC). If the architecture is adopted as the industry standard, all major producers of DRAM, or dynamic random access memory, chips would have to use the design and pay Rambus royalties. Harmon said that most experts forecast that Rambus's technology will be the dominant memory in PCs by 2001. Rambus's technology allows data to be transferred between chips at very high speeds and was used in the popular Nintendo 64 game machine. The company doesn't manufacture or market chips, but licenses its technology to major chip makers. Intel would incorporate Rambus-based DRAM into its chip sets, which run a large percentage of PCs. Other companies have been pushing different technologies to speed communications between chips. But rival camps can't agree on a common competing format. Dell Computer Corp. and Compaq Computer Corp. confirmed plans to ship PCs with Rambus technology in 1999. Copyright (c) 1999 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Companies or Securities discussed

To: MileHigh who wrote (16649)	2/25/1999 10:07:00 AM
From: Dave B	Respond to of 93625

MileHigh, Re: Laptop RDRAM. The new news sounds like the announcement of a special form factor, the SO-RIMM, and that samples are already being shipped. That is good news. Can't tell much from the article, but hopefully the chips aren't too different from the PC RDRAM chips (it doesn't sound any different), so that production efficiencies are maintained. About the only unusual effect I can think of (there may be many others, of course!) is that it might have an effect on the cost of laptops. Right now, I believe most laptops use their own form factor for memory upgrades. With no real standards, you have limited competition except for the most popular models. The laptop vendors can make up some of the lost margin by charging more for the memory upgrades (add-ons are always much higher margin products). If they start using a standard form factor that any memory company can put together, they may have to try to recover that lost margin in the original laptop price. We'll have to see. Anyone else have any thoughts? Dave B