Rambus Loses 7-year Patent Battle Against Micron, Hynix
Rambus suffered a painful loss in court against Micron and Hynix.
Rambus filed an antitrust lawsuit against several DRAM manufacturers back in 2004, alleging that the companies colluded against Rambus to shoot down the company's RDRAM memory technology.
Back in the late 1990s, RDRAM was the memory technology favored by Intel for its Pentium III and 4 processors. Intel heavily promoted RDRAM and even invested $300 million in Samsung's memory manufacturing to ramp up RDRAM production and bring manufacturing prices of the technology down. However, few memory manufacturers supported RDRAM due to no demand and high production prices that were substantially higher than the PC133 and PC266 modules.
Rambus accused memory manufacturers of price fixing to prevent a success of RDRAM, but a jury now determined that Rambus did not "meet its burden of proving its case against the two defendants." Micron saw it a bit differently and said that the jury simply cleared the company of "any and all liability" as the company "acted in accordance with the law and consistent with its values of innovation and fair competition in the marketplace."
It was a big blow for Rambus that wiped hopes for a $4 billion judgment in favor of Rambus; investors reacted in a panic. Rambus stock dropped from about $18.50 to $4.63 in the hours following the announcement. Shares recovered slightly and have been trading at about $8.75 on Thursday, but the judgment still wiped about $900 million from Rambus' market cap.
hopefully we will see some corrective action for the biggest patent troll, Apple.
hopefully we will see some corrective action for the biggest patent troll, Apple.
If the 7970 is priced about the same at launch (~$400) then i wouldn't call it a bad move as supposedly this type of memory increases bandwidth by 50% over gddr5 and consumes 30% less power. So if these things hold true we might see rambus coming back into relevence in the memory sector.
Rumors say AMD is using XDR....not RDRAM....
So I can see why RAMBUS would be pissed.
THere is no reason RDRAM was so expensive to buy. RAM companies just didn't give a crap and didn't care to manufacture enough to reduce costs. If you think about it, they had Itel pushing the technology. ANd if Intel cannot push the technology then you know something is wrong.
They had a good opportunity, and wind was taken from their sails.
RAMBUS turned evil after this.
I don't know about the rest of you, but I get a warm fuzzy feeling knowing Rambus' CEO, Board, and other high level executives have to explain to their families why they can't get that second yacht now.
Actually, the price had almost NOTHING to do with licensing fees. They just had a terrible time making PC800. Eventually, it proved superior to DDR, and cost the same, but by then the reputation was so bad, it died. When they were both out, RDRAM outperformed DDR on the Pentium 4.
Ironically, when RDRAM was very expensive, and for a processor that couldn't effectively use it (although the i840 worked well), Intel was pushing RDRAM. When RDRAM prices finally fell so they were the same as DDR, and it had a processor that could use it, Intel walked away from it. Weird.
This news isn't the end off of this. Rambus will appeal it, and the next result could be different. If you can get RMBS very cheap, it's a very good stock to own.
Off the top of my head, the intel branded VC820 motherboard supported rdram for Slot 1 PIII processors. I had one paired with an 866mhz p3, still have it stuck in a closet somewhere, but the memory was stupid expensive and had to be used in pairs or with terminator cards for any empty slots. I believe Intel also released a dual socket workstation board based on the same chipset if I remember right.
when rdram came out it seemed SO bad, price-performance wise. i remember opting for a ddr supporting mobo instead of rdram supporting mobo after reading rdram reviews. i don't regret that one bit (i do regret buying a space heater tho')