How Rambus is screwed...

[superbaby]

Now that even Intel's CEO has admitted that Rambus was a mistake, they are going downhill. Although Intel is going to release P4 chips with Rambus support, I think they'll release another chipset that will offer support for other memory types (DDR). Intel *has* to, if they stick with Rambus, their prices and poor performance they are going to lose crazy market share to AMD.

I think that the memory manufacturers, instead of fighting legal battles to produce more RIMMs, are simply gonna drop RIMM production to minimal levels and produce industry standard memory types. There's no point in supporting RIMMs if Intel isn't...

Eventually Rambus is going to be out of business - unless they can justify their ridiculous prices for the same amount of performance! Who in their right mind would pay 3-5 times more for the same performance?

I think I'm going to short-sell Rambus stock... too bad you don't get a bonus prize if the company files for chapter 11

 

[Windogg]

Ju$t $ay "NO" to Rambu$t. No way in hell I'm getting a RIMMjob.

Windogg

 

[pm]

Shorting is premature, IMO.

For a start, there's the Playstation 2 - which uses Rambus. I think this will sell well.

Also, I don't think that I'd want to predict the outcome of the patent litigation by putting my money on the line. Sure everyone on here has convinced themselves that Rambus is scum and don't have a case, but none of us are patent lawyers and counting on our legal opinions is probably not recommended. The fact that two (or is it three? I can't remember. Toshiba, and Hitachi I remember, but I seem to remember a third one in Europe settling) big semiconductor companies have settled is disconcerting at the least.

But it's your money, do with it what you want. I personally wouldn't advise this though.

Remember that shorting leaves you in a case of unlimited downside liability. I recommend buying puts if you are really serious about this - besides they are cheaper.

 

[noxipoo]

sony already said ps3 will not use rambus. dolphin not using it either i think. plus most of those contracts they signed are only until Dec.

 

[Midnight Rambler]

<< I think I'm going to short-sell Rambus stock... >>

Let me guess, you like playing with fire too? :Q Seriously, for all the reasons pm gave and more, you'd be making a big gamble with your money. If you like speculation, you'd be much better off buying some stock in Ericsson (which has been slaughtered for their poor cell phone sales, yet most of their business (75% or so) is in building wireless infrastructure. They have won 16 of the 21 &quot;3G&quot; contracts recently awarded in Europe. One contact alone, with a German company, is worth $1.3B to Ericsson.

 

[The Wildcard]

Sony made the smart desicion in not making a long term agreement with Rambus. I think their biggest mistake was first their ego in automatically assuming people would shell out the extrordinary amount of money to buy their ram. Now that alone wouldn't have destroyed them BUT what did in the end was the fact their ram didn't perform anywhere NEAR as they claimed it to be.

 

[pm]

My point is not &quot;Rambus is great&quot; - it's more like &quot;Shorting is risky especially with volatile stocks&quot;. Far better to buy puts.

In the unlikely event that say, Micron settles with Rambus tomorrow, the stock could literally double overnight (look at Rambus's stock history if you think this is an exaggeration). In that case, you'd lose all your money. What if then, Samsung miraculously announces that they have decided to pay royalties to Rambus too - it could then triple from today's price - in that case, the person shorting has now lost far more money than they ever put in in the first place. That's unlimited downside liability. You can lose more than you ever invested in the first place. In addition to just wild swings in the stock price you also need to worry about short squeezes. Short squeezes are nightmares - you don't even want to think about that happening to you.

But puts if you want to bet on the stock tanking time. They are cheap (for short-term ones, anyway) and they do not have unlimited downside. The worst that can happen is that you'll lose your investment.

 

[Spook]

I don't think Rambus is going out of business(Too Bad:frown but the sad fact is, they don't produce anything... They just collect royalty checks.... The only thing I could see happening is if the Legal bills get too high and force them into bankrupcy... I just hope they don't win their case against the Dramurai...

 

[superbaby]

Rambus support for the PS2 was dropped, I don't have the link to the article but it's definitely not in the PS2 (if it is, it won't be in the future, the Japanese hate paying royalties for American technology ).

I agree short-selling is a definite risk (a really big-ass one) but in this case I don't see how Rambus stock could ever rise a significant amount. They are so tied up in lawsuits you have to wonder if their engineers even have a direction in which to next take Rambus technology. Their management may not be bad but the direction they are taking definitely is not one of improvement of their technolgoy. I am only thinking of short-selling about $5000 worth of Rambus stock. It's not too much of a risk, but the put option definitely looks better. This one certainly is a gamble for me

However I've gambled 3 times - bought Nvidia stock early, bought Nortel stock early and bought MS stock right after it split. Made some nice cash, but I'm not long-term investing, I'm still a kid and this money just goes for future use or buying a nice new 5.1 system

*If*, as you say, Micron or Samsung get down on their knees, bend over and settle with Rambus - why on earth would they? Intel, Rambus' only lifeline, has officially stated that it was a mistake to go with them.

I see no future with Rambus, it's far too late for them to turn around and re-introduce better performing RIMM technology, because it would require some crazy redesigns, and you think they would spend the resources to do that - instead of filing lawsuits to get more money?

 

[SlingBlade]

If you look through computer history, you will find that the #1 thing that prevents technologies from becoming standards is the result of a company asking royalties for their technology, and expecially inforcing them to the extent Rambus has.

 

[Adul]

Now why would they redesign the playstation to to not use rambus?

 

[Shukaido]

<< Rambus support for the PS2 was dropped, I don't have the link to the article but it's definitely not in the PS2 (if it is, it won't be in the future, the Japanese hate paying royalties for American technology ). >>



Ha ha. Very funny.

Yes, Rambus memory is in the PS2. Yes, it will still be in the PS2 when it launches in the US. No Sony isn't going to remove it. Not now, and not anytime between now and five years from now when the PS3 is released. Game developers would KILL Sony if they tried to do a stupid thing like that (or at the very least, jump ship to Nintendo or MS). The PS3 may be a different story, but Sony can't just 'drop support' for Rambus in the PS2.

As for the Japanese hating royalties, all three memory manufacturers that have settled their court cases with Rambus are Japanese (Hitachi, Toshiba, and Oki).

 

[Methodical713]

PS2 uses rambus, and they can't change that now.

The whole point of using rambus in the system was that it allowed sudden fast transactions, the datapaths within the system are much superior to any other console... programmers had some trouble learning how to use the effectively in regard to texture loading and such... heh.

So its rambus forever with the PS2, unless they want to be really extreme.


RAmbus memory no longer costs a fortune...
Do a search on pricewatch.com
220 bucks for PC800 RDRAM (Samsung, the best).

I paid 200 for my mushkin rev 2, 128 megs.

But what makes RDRAM future-attractive is a combonation of factors.

DDR rocks, no doubt about it...
What is sweet about RDRAM though?

Look at williamette and the i850 chipset... friggen 3.2 gbits of bandwidth...

DDR can do half that.
(i believe.... correct me if i am wrong... I have been drinking, sorry)

This is because RDRAM uses different signaling methods, and is SERIAL in nature unlike the parrellism of SDRAM, which means COMPLEXITY....
This makes it possible for a dual channel configuration...
THis means that every i850 board will require two sticks of RDRAM
and it will treat the memory much like a RAID stripe
Every other bit will go to the sticks of memory
THus when you call for something out of memory, It gets each half at the SAME time, And there is none of the extra latency associated with multiple banks of RDRAM on a single channel...

RDRAM is faster.

WHich as an AMD investor i really hate to say.

THe politics of it change everything, with the licensing fees DDR may win out..

THe reason there aren't any dual channel SDRAM configurations is that the pin count of SDRAM is hella huge, and sensitive... so you'd have to have a really expensive motherboard (many layers) to do that.... and i dont think anyone has made a chipset for that sorta thing yet... or will.

QDR is on the drawing board, that is far from reality

The other thing i think makes RDRAM attractive is the fact that is is serial in nature, and such thins have shown themselves in the past to be easy to ramp up

imagine if the 16-bit data size were to double to 32..

6.4 gbit per second..

I dunno.. it looks attractive to me... I think williamette will have an awesome memory subsystem, and craptacular main processor

At least, until it can ramp up to worthwhile speeds...

these are just my opinions, and remember, ive been drinking..
heeh


and oh yeah, dont short rambus for these reasons and the fact that someone else already mentioned your losses wouldnt stop... which would suck. heheh e

LAter

 

[PCResources]

<< imagine if the 16-bit data size were to double to 32.. >>



There is no need for that, if you want to increase the bandwidth, you just add another channel.

So why not make the bus wider AND add another channel? Well, there are downsides to that, pin-count increases and so on, but adding channels can achieve the same thing.

This is the best thing with Rambus, you can add very many channels to increase the bandwidth. One example is the coming Alpha 21364 wich uses 8 channels, and an integrated (on-chip) memory controller.

Patrick Palm

Am speaking for PC Resources

 

[Macro2]

Noxipoo,
RE:&quot;sony already said ps3 will not use rambus. dolphin not using it either i think. plus most of those contracts they signed are only until Dec&quot;


How do you know this, do you have a link or source?


What kind of RAM will PS3 use?

Mac

 

[superbaby]

Don't have time to post a full reply...

If you could read the Japanese/Chinese high-tech magazines you would know that Rambus support for the PS2 is intended to be dropped in future revisions. The MAIN reason for that is you can get the same performance out of much-cheaper alternative SDRAM flavors i.e. DDR SDRAM.

Rambus bandwidth specs are all paper specs. If they really gave that kind of bandwidth you would really see that kind of performance!

While the Japanese manufacturers have settled with Rambus you should check how much production they are actually pumping out for RIMMs, then compare it with their SDRAM production. You only pay royalties for the how many RIMMs you make, so they are making as little as possible! Damn all these magazines lying around I don't have a scanner... argh...

 

[Macro2]

Have you got a fax?

Mac

 

[Windogg]

Plus don't forget how much memory PS2 uses compared to a PC. My vodka corrupted brain (DAMN SATURDAY NIGHTS!!!) recalls 512K of memory while your average PC ships ships with 64MB - 256MB. Even though Sony will ship millions of PS2s, the PC market will be where Rambust's future lies.

Windogg

 

[cavingjan]

I seriously doubt Rambus would go out of business. Look at the nature of the company. It is a think tank and that is all. They've been around for a long time.

 

[Macro2]

How would you expect Rambus to stay in business? Sell off the office furniture and water coolers? You have to pay all those Lawyers you know. They won't stay on contingency forever if they start running out of cases or lose a couple.

mac

 

[Methodical713]

ok put putting this behind us think to the future

Whats the fastest memory system you see for the future?

There are two options
Enhanced DDR-2,
or Rambus

a briefing about E-DDR-2

DDR-2 has some nice things going for it, its backwards compatible with DDR so thats pretty cool...
THe &quot;enhanced&quot; part is the sweet part.

You see ram being sold with latencies of 2-2-2 being the best...
Enhanced DDR-2 would use a small SRAM cache and drop the cas latency to 1. Thats pretty cool, no? If there is a miss it wouldn't help but much of memory is contiguous calls....

Anyways,
DDR-2 is an addition to DDR,
but running at 200 Mhz.

As you can tell im not caring much for good writing.. heheh..

DDR is PC1600 at 100 mhz, i believe...
so 1.6 not bad.
DDR-2 will be 3.2

Rambus on the i850 can already do that

DDR-2 is STILL on the drawing board...

DDR can do 2100 at 133 mhz...
Not to shabby.

Its still enough for todays things... When we get up to 2ghz processors though, i think memory will again become a bottleneck.

I would like to mention again i am an AMD investor so you CANT call me a rambus-lover

I just see technical merits i dont in DDR.


someone posted on an 8-channel rambus config..
Holy cripeys..
I'd like to know how that is set up... that could be hella fast..

Like, it could be set up so that each chip gets its own controller so that latencies arent obscene, as opposed to the pairing concept...

I am rambling now i will stop..