Apparently Rambus DOESN'T own DDR

http://www.electronicnews.com/enew [...] Detail.asp
Pre-trial ruling by judge says that Rambus claim to DDR is invalid. In part:

"By Steven Fyffe, Electronic News
Mar 14, 2001 --- A judge has made a pre-trial ruling limiting the scope of Rambus Inc.’s patents in the U.S. court case against Infineon Technologies AG, according to industry sources close to the case.

This afternoon’s ruling by judge Robert E Payne, who is hearing the case in the U.S. District Court in Richmond, Va., could kill Rambus’ (nasdaq: RMBS) royalty claims on SDRAM and double data rate (DDR) memory, sources said.

In the ruling, the judge sided with an expert witness from Infineon (nyse: IFX), sources said.

“(The Markman) testimony was that the Rambus patent is a multiplex bus, and that we don’t use the multiplex bus in our SDRAM or DDR products,” the source said. “It means that because we don’t use the multiplex bus they use in their patents…we are not in violation of their patents.”

Micron Technology Inc. and Hyundai Electronics Industries Co. Ltd. use the same bus architecture as Infineon."

There is also a discussion of potential fraud on Rambus part in the article as well.

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That would bbe nice.....

M

Opinions are like arseholes .... everybody’s got one.... :smile:

Reply to Anonymous

Give me a break a german judge ...
international courts rarely side with foriegn patent claims,

infineon is a german company..

mean nothing there are 4 more cases pending, and the really good ones are in california where rambus filed, including Micron, and infineon..

even if rambus cannot enforce patent against infineon in germany,
if us courts rule in favor of rambus which is likely
that mean infineon cannot import their ram into this country,
which is certain death..

all the patent experts agrgee rambus has a great case.
you are forgetting,
rambus developed data doubling technology whereby
ram signal is used on both sides to double data rate..
HENCE DDR,

this is clear and the patend which i have read proves this..

why then have 8 of the 10 largest companies which make infineon look small decides to pay rambus if they thought they had a case..

they realized the do not..
believe me if the japanese and Koreans who are nortorius
for ripping off designs decided to pay rambus there is a good reason..
when the Japanese ripped of INTEL in the 70's INTEL was a memory company and INTEL gave up and started building CPU's because it was difficult case..

SAMSUNG ripped of TI, and Micron in the past, and lawsuits were filed and still going on..
but SAMSUNG was the first to pay RAMBUS..
for both..

the only questionable patent is sdram because it uses generic technology but there is no doubting DDR is a rambus patent
they will win in the US..
CAMERON

CYBERIMAGE
<A HREF="http://www.4CyberImage.com " target="_new">http://www.4CyberImage.com </A>
Ultra High Performance Computers-

Reply to Anonymous

Cyber,
A German Judge? Re-read. Judge Payne is in US district court in Virginia, USA. Infineon is a German company, but this is a US court case and the ruling could have an impact on the Micron case as well. And while Rambus may in fact have invented DDR, it is far from clear that their patents are valid considering their participation in JDEC standards meetings. The judge seems to have some feeling that there may in fact be criminal fraud involved and has thus voided the attorney client priveledge between Rambus and its attorneys. Quoting from the Virginian judge one more time: "“Attorney-client privilege has been forfeited under the crime-fraud exception as to certain topics, and therefore the Defendants may conduct depositions of Messrs Diepenbrock, Vincent, Crisp, Mitchell and Tate respecting the legal advice provided about disclosures of patents and patent applications to JEDEC by Rambus Inc, the disclosure policy of JEDEC and about the efforts by Rambus, Inc. to broaden its patents to cover matters pertaining to the JEDEC standards.”

Mike

Reply to Anonymous

And SORRY. Should probably have posted this thread in the Memory forum. But thought it was interesting.

Reply to Anonymous

don't worry I agree with the interest of the subject cos I have a DDR system...

M

Opinions are like arseholes .... everybody’s got one.... :smile:

Reply to Anonymous

CyberImage, Rambus may have a patent on a DDR memory system, but so what? With a patent, you cannot patent just a concept, but an actual way of doing that. There are probably many different ways of incorporating double data rates into a memory system. Kind of like automatic transmissions in cars. Sure, there was a first that was done a certain way, but some 11,000 other patents have been made using different ways of accomplishing the same goal. Same concepts, but different means of accomplishing the goal. If current DDR memories are using a different way of achieving double data rate, then the Rambus patent means absolutely nothing, as their patent does not cover that way of doing it. It's kind of like if I made a perpetual motion machine (I know, impossible) that used magnets to do it. Now, I patent the perpetual motion machine that way, it's mine. But, if someone else were to come along and also make a perpetual motion machine, using electricity and not magnets, even though it does the same thing as my invention, but it is a different means of achieving it, it is a unique invention and not bound by the rules or constraints of my patent.

That is probably what's going on with DDR. Although I have not read Rambus' patent or technical docs about DDR memory, Micron, Infineon, Hyundai, and others are probably fighting for a reason.

"We put the fun back into fundamentalist dogma!"

Reply to ksoth

I'm very curious about why you defend EVERY SINGLE ASPECT of Intel, their products, their business associates, their practices...etc..etc. What the f*ck is wrong with you? I'm sorry that I can't find a way to pose that question without flaming you, but really, what is your problem? Does the word fixation ring a bell?

Reply to Nikko

dude,

This is an American Case.

Worst of it is the potential criminal charges involved.

Its just going to get interesting from here.. if I were you,
and you actually do hold RMBS, I'd sell them or at least buy put options while you can. You'd probably want to cover a multiple of 4 contracts.. Woohoo!! Jan '02 put @ 32.5 is bidding at $12/share! woohoo!

Reply to kurokaze

FYI...Rambus is off a whopping 26% right now. OUCH.

Reply to Anonymous

DAMN!!! I was wondering why Rambus equity price is down $7-$9 so far today.

Well, looks like its time to buy some 6 month options and play the 50/50 game. I personally think that Rambus has a strong case but that micron and Infinion have a stronger case. It depends who the judge is more simpathetic with when both sides have strong cases.

It does not bode well for Rambus when the judge does away with lawyer/ client privliges, when the case has not even been heard yet.

And YES!!! IF Rambus loses this case it could potentially be used as presidence for the micron vs. rambus case or any case that it would apply to in the U.S.A.. As stated this case is being heard in the U.S.A. not in germany(DUH!).

If its any consolation to those that love RAMBUS this case is probably long from over no matter what side wins the peliminary cases. This case will probably still be going on in some form or other when we have switched to MRAM or some other memory type and SDRAM-DDR RAM is just some distant memory.

[-peep-], by that time Rambus might be so cheap that even if they finally win all the cases it might be cheaper for Micron or infineon to just buy them out. It will probably be cheaper than paying Rambus any accumulated royalties- LOL

Reply to Anonymous

Hot damn, it's not just me! I see you noticed that too, Nikko. I bet Cyber'd probably defend the Phoenix BIOS as the best BIOS in existence, simply because Intel uses it on most (all?) of their motherboards. Anyone who has used a Phoenix BIOS should know just how indefensible THAT claim is :wink:

Kelledin
<A HREF="http://kelledin.tripod.com/scovsms.jpg" target="_new">http://kelledin.tripod.com/scovsms.jpg</A>

Reply to Kelledin

Cool beard! Is that you, Billy Gibbons? :-)

Reply to Nikko

In the interest of fairness (sometimes lacking around here) I should point out that both Rambus and Infineon officially deny that there has been any decision regarding patents in the case....Now I can think of many reasons why both would say this, but thought it was fair to pass this on since I posted the original article. The portion regarding Attorney client priveledge being void is, however, apparently an official ruling.

Reply to Anonymous

Heh, yep, that's me :wink: I basically stopped trimming the beard about a year ago.

(although I'm really not fond of SCO products--I'm a Linux specialist more than anything.)

Btw, who's Billy Gibbons? I imagine he's a bit earlier than my generation... I also had the same question when I got called Grizzly Adams :smile:

Kelledin
<A HREF="http://kelledin.tripod.com/scovsms.jpg" target="_new">http://kelledin.tripod.com/scovsms.jpg</A>

Reply to Kelledin

You're exactly right about the whole patent issue. You can patent a method of achiving a goal, but not the achivement of that goal itself. And since (as far as I know) all DDR SDRAM producers use a bus doubling method different from RDRAM's method, that means Rambus should lose the case.

On top of that though, if any memory producer can prove that it was working with the double-rate technology before the patent was awarded to Rambus, then even if that memory producer loses the patent war, they can still produce their DDR SDRAM and any future products using the same technology without having to pay Rambus a single penny.

Instances of this kind of thing have long stood in the patent business where two people work on the same technology, one patents it first, and the other proves they had been working with it before the patent and thus the patent does not apply to them. In such cases in fact, if the one that didn't get the patent awarded can prove that their use of the technology predates that of who the patent was awarded to, they can fight to get the patent awarded to them instead. But that route is usually so costly and difficult to prove that it isn't worth it.

But either way, even if somehow DDR SDRAM comes out belonging to Rambus (which I highly doubt) it is still entirely possible that several of the companies producing DDR SDRAM will find some long-lost document to prove that they were using the technology before Rambus was awarded the patent. And thus they won't have to pay royalties.

The only reason people are already paying Rambus royalties is simply because it was less expensive for them to pay the royalties than to pay their lawyers when Rambus sues them.

If Rambus loses and then doesn't get bought out or go under, I'll definitely look into snagging as many shares as I can. After all, at that point their stock can only go up since RDRAM will continue to be used for at least a few more years.

- Sanity is purely based on point-of-view.

Reply to slvr_phoenix

I am pretty familiar with patent law, have a few pending myself..

DDR and rambus use a unique concept date rate doubling through signal compression or doubling,
and that is patentable
rambus has over 100 patents in memory and controllers..
they are a very impressive research team.

it is really not their fault that INTEL dicked them around for 4 years before going with them and that is part of this controversy or we would have been using them in P5 systems
a while ago.

CAMERON

CYBERIMAGE
<A HREF="http://www.4CyberImage.com " target="_new">http://www.4CyberImage.com </A>
Ultra High Performance Computers-

Reply to Anonymous

Cyber,
I don't deny that they may be strong from an engineering/Int. prop perspective. I mean as much <peep> as they have been given about Rambus memory performance, when in reality it wasn't the memory but the processor/chipset that was the issue. But I have serious reservations about their business conduct, particularly the JEDEC participation issue. They are accused of withholding information from members regarding patents filed for/in process/going to be filed and thus allowing certain elements of their Int Property to be incorporated into what was supposed to be a joint industry standard. Now that the standard is adopted and companies are fully invested, they pop up and say "we own it, pay or spend all of your money in court". And there is something to these accusations. It takes a lot to get a judge to waive attourney client priv. He has to have some solid legal foundation to believe that there is CRIMINAL FRAUD involved in order to make this ruling. That's pretty disturbing when you think about it.

Mike

Reply to Anonymous

GOod queestions and I have to tell you,
they do some things that really piss us off, like stepping changes, hardware dumping on occasion especially with NIC,s
and other things that do not come to mind now..
but I also have to say this,
they have set up a dealer program that helps dealers that are members greatly, in terms of knowledge.
we have to attend 4 engineering meetings a year,
they give us a hotline to ask questions,
they inform us of price reductions 2-4 weeks ahead of time,

they are there to help us develop a MB or hardware if we so choose at their cost,

they send us engineering manuals and docs free, and
coordinate system planning, expecially with the 4- 8
CPU XEON systems we build,

all these things and more show they are serious about having customers and dealers have a great expierence and
help if something goes wrong, which is honestly rarely does.

AMD does few of these things, and tends to be coy and closed lipped about things..

don't get me wrong, We have beta testing CPU's for AMD and they send us some from time to time,
and they are nice , especailly Jerry Sanders, who I met a few times at my parents house for drinks ( true story I swear)a few years ago

but they are just not settled in terms of cohesive policies and uniform directions in my opinion..

they also have some realy hardware issues, and poilitcal fallout to contend with, such as chipset vendors being afraid to piss off INTEL, will never get RAMBUS,
tend to use crappy chipset manufacturers

( we have tried and been horrified with ALI and VIA since
the 486 days..

they will carve out a nitche and help people with low cost low end systems, and that servers a purpose,
but there is compromise in their systems that we cannot
feel comfortable totally unequivically reccommending to our clients since one of our mantra's is quality with zero compromise.
sure if a client just cannot afford or is head and shoulders
insisting on AMD we will give him one, but with a waiver,
and understanding that it is not our first choice..
many times nothing has gone wrong, but there is the potential, and all you have to do is look at this forum and
AMD chipset ,CPU and software issues have come up 3 to 1 compared to intel, and ask any tech support tech,
from Nvidia, SM, ASUS,ELsa, MS, ADOBE,Creative LAbs,
every game maker I can think of, most read me's in tech docs and they all have reference to issues with AMD systems.

just ask a geforce card maker, we have talked to all those companies above and one of the first questions is
IS IT AN INTEL OR AMD as THER EARE ISSUES WITH CERTAIN CHIPSETS AND CPU's ETC..

that said, my job is not to bash them and play favorites,
for financial, or personal reasons, just I do not like to see computers get a bad rap from novices having problems with their systems..

I hope that explains my position a little better and creates no animosity
best
CAMERON

CYBERIMAGE
<A HREF="http://www.4CyberImage.com " target="_new">http://www.4CyberImage.com </A>
Ultra High Performance Computers-

Reply to Anonymous

Quote :

have a few pending myself..

Gimme a feakin' break! What might those be, may I ask? Let me guess......a proprietary, non-uniform algorithm to fanatically support Intel.

Reply to Nikko

this is what I mean about these lame ass tabloid websites being full of [-peep-]..
the misreported the story and will likely get sued for it !
READ ON BABY

The site, ElectronicNews Online, reported incorrectly earlier today that U.S. District Judge Robert Payne had ruled in the case in Richmond, Virginia.

''It was an error that came at an unfortunate time,'' said Tom Moran, ElectronicNews executive editor. ''We have corrected it. We stand by the rest of the story.'' The Web site is published by Reed Elsevier Inc.'s Cahners Business Information division.

Harmon called the Cahners article ''alarmist.'' Even if the judge does limit the trial's scope, the article ''makes it seem that it would be all over, and that is far from the truth,'' he said.

The original Cahners article said that a ''summary judgment that would end the trial and throw out Rambus royalty claims could be made as soon as'' this morning. The updated article didn't contain that paragraph.

FIGURES IT WAS A BULLSHIT MISQUOTED STORY..
I HOPE THIS IS A LESSON TO YOU
AND I HOPE THEY ( electronic news )GET THEIR [-peep-] ASS SUED OFF
CAMERON

CYBERIMAGE
<A HREF="http://www.4CyberImage.com " target="_new">http://www.4CyberImage.com </A>
Ultra High Performance Computers-

Reply to Anonymous

LOOKS LIE RAMBUS WILL BE SELLING MORE CHIPS AS THEY GET CHEAPER, JUST LIKE P4 WILL TOO
READ ON

Samsung Electronics Develops Affordable Rambus(R) DRAM
Jan 17, 2001

0.17-micron design rule is applied to the 256Mb Rambus DRAM.
A cost reduction of at least 20 percent is expected to expand the market for this device.
Mass production is scheduled to begin in the second half of this year, with the
device targeted at mid-priced and low-end PC markets.

SEOUL, Korea - January 17, 2001 - The Rambus(R) dynamic random access memory (DRAM) has received a lot of attention as the next-generation memory device for the semiconductor industry, but its perceived high price tag has impeded its widespread use. Samsung Electronics has changed that by completing development of a much more affordable Rambus DRAM.

Samsung's new product has a 4-bank configuration, instead of the 32 banks found in conventional Rambus DRAMs. The simplified architecture is the same as that used for synchronous dynamic random access memory (SDRAM) chips. Circuit layout is optimized, while the chip size is at least 5-percent smaller than other Rambus DRAMs through the application of 0.17-micron design rule. These modifications are reported to lower production costs by at least 20-percent.

Samsung's recent Rambus DRAM outperforms regular SDRAMs and is also highly price competitive. Samsung plans to target the new device at the mid-priced and low-end PC market.

Samsung officials plan to begin mass production of the affordable Rambus DRAM in the second half of this year. Intel is said to be in the process of developing a next-generation processor and chip-set to support the new Rambus DRAM. Industry watchers predict that the lower costing Rambus DRAMs will start to be found in PCs in the second half of this year. Last year, Samsung Electronics managed to capture at least 50% of the world Rambus DRAM market. Armed with its new, less expensive Rambus DRAM, the company will be able to expand its sales to the makers of mid-priced and low-end PCs and maintain its solid lead in the high-speed memory chip market.

This year, the Rambus DRAM market is forecast to be between 250 and 300 million chips
CAMERON

CYBERIMAGE
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Ultra High Performance Computers-

Reply to Anonymous

Whatever! I hope RAMBUS dies a S*L*O*W, painful death. So do a sh*tload of other people. If RAMBUS is successful, and I doubt they will be, I would rather cram 30-pin Simms on my Sledgehammer motherboard than put RDRAM on it. Never, never will I buy RDRAM or anything that puts one cent in the RAMBUS coffers.

Tell me about your patents please. I'm waiting.........

Reply to Nikko

YEs to be honest most of that Jdec involves SDRAM,
not rambus or DDR. and I do not know the truth..
but worst case they lost all SDRAM patents,
and get in trouble for Jdec, that does not affect the DDR and RAMBUS
to which I was referring..
I see you point though
CAMERON

CYBERIMAGE
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Ultra High Performance Computers-

Reply to Anonymous

HMM well you are entitled to your jabs,
but one is a network appliance thing,
that is pretty cool, and
the other is one of those worthless 19.95 kitchen
gizmo's that sell 5 million copies late night and will hopefully make me rich
cannot say more as they are still pending and I am forbidden from saying under contrct and NDA agreement

CAMERON

CYBERIMAGE
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Ultra High Performance Computers-

Reply to Anonymous

Still waiting........

Reply to Nikko

well I have grown to enjoy your posts,
but refusing to use rambus for no reason and wanting to use simms instead makes you the apparent FANATIC in REVERSE
that you so often accuse me of..

is the glass 1\2 full and 1\2 empty
who is the fanatic, for something or against something
CAMERON

CYBERIMAGE
<A HREF="http://www.4CyberImage.com " target="_new">http://www.4CyberImage.com </A>
Ultra High Performance Computers-

Reply to Anonymous

we'll I'm currently working on something I am planning to patent.......

-----------------
"648kb is all the space anyone will ever need!"

Bill Gates, 1980s

Reply to Grizely1

The thing is though, that Rambus Dynamic Ram (RIMM) kinda sucks ass. I mean, 440BX and 815 SDRAM chipsets with SDRAM for Pentium III usually performed better than Rambus, correct? I mean, all these freaks tote Rambus memory for "future" uses, but right now it's price doesn't justify it's performance, and in the future, who knows what else we will have? Maybe 200 MHz Quad Data Rate SDRAM??? Sure Rambus is coming out with PC1000 RIMMs, which might do better than current 600, 700, and 800 RIMMs, but probably not much better than current DDR PC2100 SDRAM. I mean, there is a reason why Intel itself is going to be developing its own DDR PIII and P4 chipsets...

"We put the fun back into fundamentalist dogma!"

Reply to ksoth

NO NOT at ALL LET ME EXPLAIN

the Pentium 3 was not made for rambus and neither was teh 815 or BX chipsets.

their maximum data rate throughput is about 7-800 MPS

since RAMBUS has a capability of 1.6 or 3.2 GPS,
the chipset and P3's cannot fill the extra capability of rambus,
so since sdram data rate is about the same or matched to
bx\815\ P3 bus throughput, then it shows the same performance as rambus..with those limitations of P3 and sdram and 815
BUT that does not mean rambus isn't faster..

when you get a chipset that has the same bandwidth as the P4
the 850 at 3.2 GPS and rambus is matched at that rate,
then you get 3.2 GPS bandwidth and rambus is 4 times faster.

its like the notepad example I like to use.
launch or do something in notepad a very simple app
in a P3 500 and then in a P3 1000,
its about the same regardless..
does that mean the 2 CPU are the same speed...
to some YES but that would be incorrect..
notepad just is not stressing the CPU's and memory enough
to show a difference between the 2.

run Mpeg 4, or MP3, or render a 3d image, and then you see the differences between the 2.
the ghz P3 is faster

so many reviews test with simply looped benchmarks, or
office apps or apps that cannot saturate past P3's
or athlon or SDRAM's ability of 800 MPS throghput

so it appears that they are just as fast as a P4.

but look closer and run very demanding software and as the throughput demands go past the 800 MPS mark and begin to stress the above CPU's , the P4 and RAMBUS
have a huge reserve and the performance curve continues to
climb while the others level or decline..

think of it as 2 glasses, one holds a pint and one holds a quart.

if you put the same amount of water in each, say 8 ounces,
the smaller glass will be half full.
as you pour the 8 ounces of water into the larger glass
even though the same amount has been poured into it
it is only 1\4 full, and this has room for more water where the other glass would overflow

I hope that helps with your good question
best
CAMERON

CYBERIMAGE
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Ultra High Performance Computers-

Reply to Anonymous

http://www.bigchart.com/news/artic [...] &sid=41488
 UPDATE 1-Rambus tumbles on reports of negative patent ruling
THURSDAY, MARCH 15, 2001 5:20 PM
- Reuters

(updates with Rambus comment in paragraph 5)

By Timna Tanners

LOS ANGELES, March 15 (Reuters) - Shares of computer chip maker Rambus Inc. (NASDAQ NM:RMBS) lost nearly 32 percent of their value on Thursday amid reports of a negative court ruling on its patents that could cut into its royalties, a significant portion of its revenue.

The company said no ruling on the patents had been issued, and called reports of a negative ruling inaccurate.

Shares of Rambus, which has developed technology to speed the performance of memory chips, fell $11.26 to $24.09 on the Nasdaq, where it was the second biggest percentage loser. The stock was at its lowest level since February 2000, down from a high of $127 hit in June.

Brokerage SG Cowen reported that U.S. District Court Judge Robert Payne made a pre-trial ruling in its court case with Infineon (NYSE:IFX) ( siding with Infineon regarding the scope of Rambus' patents.

An article posted on Wednesday on Cahners' Electronic News, an online electronic industry news site, also referred to the ruling and said it would limit the scope of Rambus' patents. It said the decision could reject Rambus' royalty claims on synchronous dynamic random access memory (SDRAM) and double-date rate (DDR) memory. The article cited sources close to the case.

Rambus spokeswoman Kristine Wiseman called the article inaccurate. "There was no ruling that has been issued as of yet," she told Reuters.

A Richmond, Va., attorney representing Rambus referred calls to the company. An Infineon spokeswoman declined to comment.

"It looks like it's down on an apparent negative ruling in the patent lawsuit with Infineon, although there is no definitive news from the court," said Tim Ghriskey, portfolio manager of the $4 billion Dreyfus Fund, which does not own the stock.

Rambus collects royalties from Samsung (, Mitsubishi Electric Corp. (, NEC Corp. (, Toshiba Corp. ( and Hitachi Ltd. (, and has pending lawsuits to collect royalties from Hyundai Electronics (, Micron Technology Inc. (NYSE:MU) and Infineon.

Rtr 17:20 03-15-01

Reply to khha4113

Dude(cyberimage) you must of been burned big time by RAMBUS. You must of bought the stock when it was at $117 a share.

I have never seen someone try to put such a SPIN on events like you have with these posts. Well except for bush's press secretary about CO2 emissions-LOL(LOL about the stupidity of it not the CO2 emmissions).

Your like the engineer in the engine room of the TITANIC saying 'she'll be okay, the hole isn't that big, we will just plug it up with some cloth and we should be able to get home'.-LOL

Well sorry to tell you, this ship is sinking in my opinion and by the looks of the drop today in the stock price many others think the same thing.IF the ship is listing to one side get in that life boat and row, row your way to safety for godsake-LOL.

Edited by onipion on 03/16/01 05:21 AM.

Reply to Anonymous

Hey Cyby/Fugger, both RDRAM and RAMBUS, Inc. suck! Ok? If Intel hadn't given RDRAM it's blessing, would you be all over it? Doubtful! Put another way, if AMD was backing RDRAM and Intel DDR, which memory would you be doing your sales pitch on? On second thought, don't answer that. I already know the answer.

Reply to Nikko

There are new allegations of racketeering against Rambus. What kindof terrorist business are they???

"2 is not equal to 3, not even for large values of 2"

Reply to HolyGrenade

Cyber,
The only correction they have issued at this time is regarding the summary judgement portion of the article. Not that a preliminary ruling not in Rambus' favor will be forthcoming. Where you quote the editor of electronic News as saying, ''It was an error that came at an unfortunate time,'' said Tom Moran, ElectronicNews executive editor. ''We have corrected it. We stand by the rest of the story.'' Bloomberg quotes him here (http://quote.bloomberg.com/fgcgi.cgi?T=marketsquote99_news.ht&s=AOrEg0xTpUmFtYnVz) as saying ``It was a relative minor error that came at an unfortunate time,'' said Tom Moran, ElectronicNews executive editor. ``We have corrected it. We stand by the rest of the story.'' The "relatively minor" portion of his quote was omitted from the version of his statement in your post, a small but significant difference. Regardless of that, it is far too premature to call the story "bullshit". This is a complex case that is going to be very interesting to follow, and Rambus is far, far from being in the clear.

Mike

Reply to Anonymous

To quote Goodfellas:

"Buh-bye, d1ckhead. See you in Attica, d1ck."

-------------------------------------
Nature abhors a moron. -- HL Mencken

Reply to tfbww

No kidding! There are a whole myraid of reasons to avoid RDRAM and RAMBUS, the toll collector. How can anyone feel warm and fuzzy about a company with such questionable, non-ethical business practices and tactics. Is it any wonder that RAMBUS and Intel gravitated toward each other.

Reply to Nikko

Rambus' RDRAM generates more bandwidth at the expense of latency. This is why the P3 on an SDRAM solution is better than a P3 on a RDRAM solution. The P4 was designed for RDRAM from the start and operates quite differently than any previous processor, and it shows in its terrible performance when compared to an Athlon on DDR-SDRAM. Bandwidth is not the most important factor in memory, which has been proven time and time again as memory bandwidth was increased, yet very little performance was gained. You see the most gain from latency improvements. Only recently with streaming media have you seen an application where bandwidth was more important than latency for anything but highly specialized projects. This technology isn't useful for the average consumer, yet Intel users are forced to simply suck it up and buy the inferior and more expensive solution.

There has never been a doubt that Rambus owned the patents on double and quad pumping memory. The issue is that Rambus applied for several memory patents, then joined Jedec and used its membership to move the industry towards the technologies it held patents for, applied for new patents and modified existing patents as the industry discussed its future direction, and left Jedec after it was so vested in the technologies there was no turning back, securing Rambus' future with licensing fees. When DDR SDRAM came to market, it declared these patents and demanded money, making it clear that any company that went to court to try to overturn the patents would pay significantly higher licensing fees than those that just paid them to begin with. Around here we call that extortion.

Think of it this way. You decide to take a vacation and go fishing with a couple co-workers. You all talk things over and decide that one of you will bring the food and haul the camper with his SUV, the other will bring the bait and canoe, and you'll bring the firewood and cooking utinsils. When you get up to the lake, miles from civilization, the guy with the truck and food suddenly says, "hey, you know what? I want you to pay me $5 for this turkey sandwich. Oh, and I brought my own firewood, utinsils, and bait, so I won't be needing yours." Some people might get pissed and pay the $5 for the sandwich, and others might take a canoe paddle to the guy's head.

Rambus is simply exploitive and overly litigous. It has set memory technology back a year or two if they lose, and 4 or 5 years if they win. They've increased the costs of memory for everyone as memory companies are forced to pay lawyers or Rambus. Through back-room deals with Intel they've forced an inferior memory technology upon the consumer. They did not wait until their fabrication processes were advanced enough to make the technology affordable before bringing it to market. Personally, I find these acts to be distasteful enough to boycott their product, which I am doing, along with a great many others. I am also boycotting Intel because of the role they played. I could potentially end up with an inferior machine (though CERTAINLY not today) but I think the sacrifice would be worth it if Rambus can be made to bleed a bit.

Hopefully, Rambus will lose, and all of these companies that were strongarmed will be able to countersuit and force Rambus to declare bankruptcy, or at least have stock so worthless the company can be bought up and disassembled by a more honorable company.

/Athlon-1.2GHz@1370MHz(137MHz*10)/Asus_A7V133/

Reply to Sojourn

http://dowjones.work.com/index.asp [...] 77&source= Dow Jones Business News

It aint over, but according to "Dow Jones" the ruling has been issued and apparently is not in Rambus's favor. Not a knock-out, but helps Infineon's case

Reply to Anonymous

Great post!

Reply to Nikko

Sojourn
Agree-Great post. It's what I have been trying to say on the JEDEC issue but a lot clearer and with more detail to back it up.
Mike

Reply to Anonymous

That way of testing a processor is BS. Absolutely no one on earth encodes MPEG 4, runs MP3, and renders an image at the same time. If I am spending $500 for a processer (P4) and four times as much for RAM, I damn well want that to actually give me a benefit while playing Unreal Tournament or something. But in the majority of cases, like with Pentium III, normal SDRAM on 440BX or 815 chipsets performed better, much better in some cases, than RDRAM in the 820 or 840 chipsets. Not to mention that Rambus requires dual channel implementation, correct? Meaninh no matter what you have to have atleast 2 RIMMs in the system, further adding to cost.

You say "the Pentium 3 was not made for rambus and neither was teh 815 or BX chipsets." Obvisously Intel thought Rambus was made for the Pentium III, being that they tried to force it, unsuccessfully, on consumers. The fact remains that RDRAM has huge latency penalties compared to SDRAM. What would your opinion on the subject be if DDR Pentium III systems show performace increases over both regular SDRAM and RDRAM systems?

For such an expensive memory type, it should actually help make the P4 perform how it should, which it obviously doesn't.

"We put the fun back into fundamentalist dogma!"

Reply to ksoth

>Hopefully, Rambus will lose, and all of these companies that were strongarmed will be able to countersuit and force Rambus to declare bankruptcy, or at least have stock so worthless the company can be bought up and disassembled by a more honorable company.<

Somehow, I have a vision of Rambus Lawyers being "disassembled" via the "drawn-and-quartered method." LOL!

Edited by P4Fool on 03/16/01 01:13 PM.

Reply to Anonymous

US court deals setback to Rambus in royalty suit
RICHMOND, Va., March 16 (Reuters) - A Virginia federal court judge in a pre-trial ruling released on Friday rejected computer chip maker Rambus Inc.'s (NasdaqNM:RMBS - news) definitions of eight disputed terms in a lawsuit seeking royalties from German semiconductor maker Infineon Technologies AG (NYSE:IFX - news) and its U.S. subsidiary.

In a ruling that sent Rambus shares plunging, U.S. District Court Judge Robert Payne said the company's definitions of key terms defining the scope of four patents at the center of the dispute were ``at odds'' with claims made by inventors in seeking the patents with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Payne also said Rambus, and an expert witness who testified for the company, appeared to be trying to broaden the scope of its patents on synchronous dynamic random access memory (SDRAM) and double-date rate (DDR) memory, which are at the heart of its royalty suit against Infineon.

``Also, it was difficult to credit (the expert's) testimony on disputed terms because it reflected the general, and disturbing, tendency of Rambus to distance its current constructions from what the inventors said in...the specification, and, in doing so, to use the claim construction process to broaden claims,'' Payne wrote in the 77-page ruling.

Rambus filed suit in federal court in Richmond, Virginia, alleging that Infineon had infringed on four Rambus patents and seeking royalties from the German semiconductor company.

The pre-trial ruling, released to attorneys for both companies on Thursday, set the stage for a jury trial on April 10.

Rambus said it would not drop its royalty claims against Infineon despite the judge's ruling, which adopted Infineon's definition on each of eight disputed terms underlying the patents.

``Based on this interpretation, Rambus maintains its allegation that Infineon has infringed these four patents. Rambus is prepared to protect its intellectual property from those who infringe and looks forward to presenting its case to the jury,'' the company said.

Rambus shares plunged 26.8 percent on Friday, falling $6.45 a share to a year-low of $17.64 in afternoon trading on the Nasdaq, a day after shares tumbled $11.26 a share to $24.09 on unconfirmed reports of the ruling.
http://biz.yahoo.com/rf/010316/n1631222.html

Reply to Anonymous

you mist read my post,
I did not mean those test all at the same time..

also, P4 and rambus are faster in games that are heavy loading like Quake which use OGL , more memory and CPU..

Quakes get 60 FPS faster than on athlon..

normal SDram does not perform better, it only seems that way when you use apps that do not stree the memory or CPU bus.
that is why I listed the above apps to test..

you are arguing for this moment about what people use.
software is ever changing and will get more complex and stree components more very soon.

P4 and rambus are ready for that and can handle it
sdram is NOT..

latency is an ooverused term which tom and others write about by looking at spec sheets rather than the whole picture..
the 850 chipset and Pentium 4 have software, and architecture that compensates for this, uses longer pipes moving more data,so it does not really matter.
if you have one with latency of 2 moving 500 MPS
and another type of ram with latency of 4 moving 20 MPS
even though the higher latency ram looks slower it isn't as it is moving 4 times the data..

CAMERON

CYBERIMAGE
<A HREF="http://www.4CyberImage.com " target="_new">http://www.4CyberImage.com </A>
Ultra High Performance Computers-

Reply to Anonymous

no you are totally wrong

latency is an overused term which tom and others write about by looking at spec sheets rather than the whole picture..
the 850 chipset and Pentium 4 have software, and architecture that compensates for this, uses longer pipes moving more data,so it does not really matter.
also rambus uses doubling data rate technology by using both sides of the clock signal, so latency becomes less of an issue
if you have one with latency of 2 moving 500 MPS
and another type of ram with latency of 4 moving 20 MPS
even though the higher latency ram looks slower it isn't as it is moving 4 times the data..

if what you say had any truth to it, rambus and P4 would not be faster than sdram in all the applications
that it is,
and DDR would not be faster than sdram since it has higher latency.

you need a certain amount of latency when you are moving huge amounts of data expecially with clock doubling signals
or you get misfires.

cache, longer pipes and algorhythms can compensate for these

CAMERON

CYBERIMAGE
<A HREF="http://www.4CyberImage.com " target="_new">http://www.4CyberImage.com </A>
Ultra High Performance Computers-

Reply to Anonymous

OOPS,

LOOKS like some of you guys jumped the gun and the articles were full of crap..

turns out the judge posponed the case when rambus
cited and proved that INfineon has withheld certain documents that prove that Infineon knew about the patens much earlier than claimed, and they have to go back to germany and find them under discovery

NOT good for infineon, since its a jury trial,
one lie you are caught in and the jury sides with rambus
no matter what other things happened..

and it still does not disputer the patent of rambus..
all Infineon is claiming is rambus did not tell it about
patents and apparenty with the ruling on fri by the judge,
he thinks maybe they are not being forthcomming abou that
since rambus cited certain doc that prove their case..

we will find out in APR.
better buy the stock now its only going up !!

can't wait !

CAMERON

CYBERIMAGE
<A HREF="http://www.4CyberImage.com " target="_new">http://www.4CyberImage.com </A>
Ultra High Performance Computers-

Reply to Anonymous

Cyber,
You are correct there has been a delay in the trial. But the judge specifically said he was not saying that the incomplete response was intentional. And Infeneon is certainly disputing Rambus's requested INTERPRETATION of the patent(s) in question, not just accusing them of withholding information at JEDEC. It's somewhat telling that Rambus requested a much broader definition of key terms, broader apparently than they defined those terms in the actual language of the patents themselves. The judge shot them down and pretty much accused them of tryiing to re-write their patents to make them support weaknesses in their case. I don't claim to know what the outcome of this will be, but it's very hard to look at this as being just a minor housekeeping ruling. As you should know, patent cases hinge on very small, technical details. And it appears that at least four of those details broke for the Infineon camp today. For example, Rambus wanted the definition of "Bus" expanded to include and connection by wire or otherwise to their memory. Infineon was able to have the definition narrowed so that it only included a very specific type of bus, the "Multiplexed Bus". Since they don't use the Multiplexed bus in their DDR memory they feel that this is a victory for them. I don't see any way to put this into a positive light for Rambus, as much as you or they might try.

Mike

Reply to Anonymous

You know, I actually REALLY hate to do this (and to emphisize this, I even used the non html tags which I hate as well), but I have to actually AGREE with Cybey.

**shudder**

Ugh.

I feel so dirty.

But he is right. Look at the nVidia GeForce video cards. Which do the video cards gain more performance from: Faster memory, or higher bandwidth? They gain more from higher bandwidth every time. Bandwidth is their main limitation, same as the RADEON cards, same as ANY processor which pushes things to the very edge of computational limits.

The P3 didn't show any gain from RDRAM because the whole architecture wasn't designed to support the higher bandwidth. It would be like making a translater to put PC133 SDRAM into an EDO SIMM slot. You might be able to get it to work, but it will never run at it's true potential. Does that make the PC133 SDRAM slow or crappy because it hardly performs better than an EDO SIMM in that situation? No more than it makes RDRAM crappy for performing so poorly when put into a P3 system.

So why did Intel shove RDRAM down the P3 user's throats? Because their P4 is optimized heavily for the high bandwidth of RDRAM. And Intel needed the assurance that RDRAM would have been produced commonly by memory manufacturers so that it would be at decent speeds and (hopefully) affordable prices when the P4 came out.

Of course, their plan didn't work as they had hoped because not many people wanted to pay so much for RDRAM in a P3 when the performance gains were hardly worth mentioning, if not worse than SDRAM.

Will a P3 benefit more from SDRAM than from RDRAM? It's possible. It isn't likely to be much though, just as the Athlon isn't gaining much. It wasn't designed for high-bandwidth memory either. Both cores are pretty old by now.

Will a P4 and any other chip designed to take advantage of higher bandwidth memory benefit from DDR SDRAM more than RDRAM? It really all depends on the chip architecture. The P4 obviously does, otherwise Intel would have ditched Rambus. No one can convince me that Intel's deals with Rambus have provided them with more money than what they would have made had they ditched Rambus all together. Intel has lost a LOT of ground and face for sticking with Rambus. So what do they have to gain from doing it? Because their P4 works better with RDRAM than with SDRAM. That, or their executives must be smoking some really wacky weed.

Don't get me wrong, I HATE Rambus and the way that they've screwed over the SDRAM community. I think the executives should be whipped with a cat-of-nine-tails. But I also think that RDRAM itself does have more potential than SDRAM derivatives. And if we see the latency improved in RDRAM, DDR (or QDR) SDRAM won't stand a chance.

RDRAM isn't much more expensive than high bandwidth DDR SDRAM. And RDRAM prices are dropping.

The company itself may be a bane on this Earth and everyone's finances, but the technology isn't.

I believe the saying goes, "Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater."

-Olestra may cause abdominal cramping and loose stools.

Reply to slvr_phoenix

You're a good man Silver. I have even had to grudgingly admit through gritting teeth that RDRAM is a decent technology, especially for the P4. Even though I still believe the P4 is a truly SUCKY product and that rambus is a SCUMMY SUCKY company, the bandwidth advantage P4 gets when paired with RDRAM is one of it's only bright spots.

Reply to Anonymous

Forum Motherboards & Memory : Memory - Apparently Rambus DOESN'T own DDR

Please mind

Focus On

Apparently Rambus DOESN'T own DDR

Forum Motherboards & Memory : Memory - Apparently Rambus DOESN'T own DDR

Please mind