DAMNIT! Rambus nabs another one :(

[NFS4]

Samsung Signs Royalty Deal With Rambus

"- Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd and Rambus Inc. today signed a patent
license agreement for SDRAM, Double Data Rate (DDR) SDRAM memory and
controllers that directly interface with these types of memory.

The new agreement covers patents for fundamental aspects of high-speed
memory interfaces invented by Rambus, which are currently being implemented
in SDRAM, DDR SDRAM and controllers that directly interface with these types
of memory.

 

[Adul]

Cant wait to see what the courts have to say.

 

[Modeps]

why does everyone hate "rambus" what are they and whats the deal?

 

[NFS4]

<< why does everyone hate &quot;rambus&quot; what are they and whats the deal? >>


Do a search for Rambus on the forums and you will know...

 

[Rigoletto]

I suspect that RAMBUS has done a sly deal with SAMSUNG- in offering them an unusually low rate. Why? Because RAMBUS has court cases against them, but still keeps a psychological edge against the other memory companies because Samsung is an absolute giant, yet appeared to capitulate. Besides, Samsung is well funded for a fight against RAMBUS too. It may be that Samsung were the bullies rather than RAMBUS in this case.

 

[rmblam]

Heh, beat you by about a half hour BranDon ;-)

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=27&amp;threadid=265716


I agree, I think there is more too this rather than &quot;samsung realizes Rambus is right&quot;.

December will be interesting. I think (maybe hope is a better word) santa comes early and kicks Rambus in the ass.

 

[superbaby]

Why does everyone hate Rambus?

Do you like paying $800 for a measly 128MB of RAM that offers little or no performance benefits than PC133 SDRAM?

If you do then you must have too much money, which you can happily get rid of by giving it to me!

 

[NFS4]

Damn, I'm getting a bit rusty in my early 20's

 

[Rado]

Electic had the link up yesterday morning...The register followed quite later since they write their own version of it.

I personally cannot stand Rambus. What sucks is that they charge high prices for technology that does not have much of an edge and what really blows is that this company is going to make its living of leaching of other companies for survival.

 

[fkloster]

<< Do you like paying $800 for a measly 128MB of RAM that offers little or no performance benefits than PC133 SDRAM? >>



Superbaby, please try again. PC-800 128mb rimms can be had < $200 bones c/o pricewatch (4X cheaper than you claim ). And as far as performance is concerned, pair PC-800 with a chipset with a 400mhz or 800mhz fsb and you would see quite and improvement. Most people around here hate rambus the company. Rambus the serial memory shows promise...

 

[Windogg]

I don't hate Rambus technology itself, just the damn &quot;We can't innovate so let's litigate&quot; mentalitiy the company seems to have. I don't want to pay for a RIMMjob.

Windogg

 

[fkloster]

Actually the correct phrase should be &quot;Rambus: We innovate &amp; litigate!&quot; (...w/inphasis on the litigate part)

 

[andylawcc]

so much of rambus-&quot;FAN&quot; (I try not to use troll) when he can't even spell inphasis right. ;p

 

[Soccerman]

I have to agree with FKLOSTER for the most part. Rambus technology isn't that bad, however it's not well thought out either.. you simply can't take away what we have currently, ie, low latency.

you have to go serial one way or another, it's just a question on how you do it..

in rambus's case, the large latency cancelled out much of the high bandwidth..

 

[rmblam]

lol@NFS4

There is an interesting barrage going on over at Aces. I found this interesting. It satisfied my suspicion on the timing of the Samsung deal.

The following is from Kelley Cook:

&quot;&quot;And I am ho-humming this ... forseen back a month ago on the always fun for a laugh: Yahoo RMBS board.

http://messages.yahoo.com/bbs?.mm=FN&amp;action=m&amp;board=4687909&amp;tid=rmbs&amp;sid=4687909&amp;mid=172070

At the time I truly thought about putting in that it probably already occurred, but Rambus Inc. would withhold the news until something bad happened to there stock price. However, I got big-headed also thought mentioning such a obvious thing might just increase RMBS stock price, so I didn't put it in. &quot;&quot;

I was wrong about the earnings, RMBS earned 9 cents last quarter. OTOH, I was right about the short term rise to $70 -- which lasted all of one day.

 

[zippy]

fkloster, here we go again. Heh, not as heated as in the past though.

PC800 is about on par with a speed between PC100 and PC133. Here is why, you have 400MHz for the DRDRAM with a 16bit bus. Or you have 100MHz with a 64bit bus.

Now, do a lil ratio:

400x16=100x64=6400

Equal.

But wait, DRDRAM is not just RDRAM, it is DRDRAM. DDR RAM...double data rate. Now, as we have seen from PC2100 RAM, you will NOT see a 2x improvement in speeds, but more like a 15% increase. Okay, so, lets redo the equation...

400x16x1.15*does NOT =*100x64
7360*DOES NOT =*6400

Damn...what the hell?

Well, now we get into the latency issue. That is why PC800 DRDRAM is a similar speed as PC100. But, for the sake of this conversation, let's throw the latency out the window, because PC800 DRDRAM is a bit faster than PC100, about 10%, but not PC133.

fkloster, they aren't improving technology, they are just doing it differently, and more expensively. Maybe we will see greater improvements when faster front side buses are used, but not now. Anyway, you've seen the P4 1.4GHz benchies...they are slower than the Tbird 1.2GHz. Granted, they could be made up, but we've seen about 3 places show similar, but not idential, results.

Now, onto the business side of things, Rambus is suing anyone and everyone because they claim to have patents on DDRSDRAM and SDRAM technologies. Where, in fact, they were in the JEDEC and then dropped out only to file for a patent on something that many manufacturers were working on at the time, including, but not nearly only, them.

I would imagine that Intel is pissed off at Rambus because they are bound to worthless, expensive technology and a horrific company. I would also imagine that Rambus is pissed off at intel because the P4 is a weak chip that just pumps out #'s. I don't see this relationship lasting much longer.

(c) zippy 2000