Announcement

**Mark F** · 18 January 2000, 22:08

Hey Intel's not even that firmly behind Rambus anymore. Intel's 'exclusive' agreament with Rambus now over, they are actively talking with other memory companies again, to shape the futur of memory. And their next chipset release will support PC133. BWAAAHHHHHHH!!

Mark F.

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OH NO, my retractable cup holder swallowed a CD

**Jammrock** · 19 January 2000, 07:24

According to my inside sources at Micron, they are about to rev up production on DDR DRAM. Apparently Micron has not even begun to make Ramflop RAM, because they would lose too much money from making it. DDR RAM on the other hand is already out on the market (video cards and a few other devices) and is going to be featured and full supported on AMD/VIA's next chipset.

Now imagine this...512 MB DDR RAM @ 266 MHz sitting on the North Bus (which also runs at 266 MHz) of a brand new Athlon 1 GHz system. Now imagine yourself with this rig in November! I have goose bumps now.

Jammrock

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PIII 450@504, 256 MB RAM, 35 GB total w/ WD Experts, Abit UDMA 66 controller, CL 6x DVD, PLEXTOR 8x4x32 ATAPI CD-RW (my newest toy), G400 32 MB DH, SB Live! w/ Digital I/O, LinkSys Etherfast 10/100, DSI 56k modem, Addtronics 6896A Case w/ a crap load of fans and Dynmat noise dampening, MAG DX715T monitor.

Hi, my name is Jammrock. I'm a computer phreak and an EverCrack addict.

**Thundrchez** · 19 January 2000, 11:19

Geeze, you are making me drool. More speed! More power! Bwwahahahahhahhahah!

Micron makes some top notch SDRAM. It is the best stuff that I've used in my PCs.

**Rick** · 19 January 2000, 14:38

Did any of you see the Transmeta webcast. Their new chip has DDR onchip, comment was made "bet other chipmakers wished their chipsets supported another ver of memory, other then Rambus". Specs for the new chip are here: http://www.transmeta.com/crusoe/family.html
Also has an intergrated North Bridge.

Rick

**Gasoline** · 19 January 2000, 17:33

If you would guys, check out www.pc133memory.com They got some kind of memory they are selling called High density HSDRAM.

Now, I have two 128mb Hsdram dimms from this company, the ones at the bottom of the page. But what are the ones above those that say new beside them. What is special about this High Density Ram? Any ideas? They claim that they are 256Mbit components, and will not work with BX chipsets. Is this DDR or what is it?

**Thundrchez** · 19 January 2000, 19:24

I dunno for sure, but this is what I gater:

As always, they're packing more and more on these chips, and they've gone up a density grade.

It's probably got more word lines going to those memory chips than the 440bx chipset can spit out. It would probably work with a 440bx chipset, but you would only see half of the memory. It can get 256MB with 8 chips on one side of the DIMM, or 512MB with 16 chips, 8 on front and 8 on back. People would not be happy if they bought a 256MB DIMM and could only run it as a 128MB dimm.

It looks like it is still good ol SDRAM, but these are the fastest guys on the market. I'm fairly certain that it is not DDR.

Anybody else care to comment?

**ahartman** · 20 January 2000, 11:07

The unfortunate reality is that RAMBUS will probably win this lawsuit. I've read a few articles on this today and it seems to hinge on the interpretation of patent law rather than intent.

While RAMBUS just received their patents in 1998, they're retroactive to 1990. Since SDRAM took off around '93, anything after is fair (or unfair depending on your view) game. Ignorance of patent applications is no safety net from being sued long after the fact.

The real bitch is that the lawsuit has a much wider range than just Hitachi and memory chips. Anyone using syncronous data transfer for ANYTHING is a target. Yes, that means processors as well as memory.

A lot of chip makers have licenses from RAMBUS but apparently very few of them cover the syncro data transfer of the Hitachi lawsuit.

Look for most companies to license rather than litigate on this one.

**Thundrchez** · 20 January 2000, 11:39

I'd like to see them attempt to pull that sh*t off with my company. My CEO will fight tooth and nail to the very bitter end. We've scared off some lawyer "IP" companies before and they KNOW not to mess with us unless they have 100% provable case where we have violated their patents.

Lawyers are a life form lower than pond scum.

**ahartman** · 20 January 2000, 13:13

On a more humorous note, this kind of reminds me of a letter my company recieved from a guy at the beginning of December.

Apparently, he had a perfectly legal patent for 'century windowing'. Anyone involved in Y2k programming knows that century windowing involves picking a year and if it's before that year, it's 21st century and if it's after that year, it's 20th century.

Anyway, this guy received his patent in mid 1999. At the beginning of December, he sent a note to nearly every business in existence saying that in order to use "his" century windowing idea, we'd have to pay a royalty of $50,000. After Jan 1, the fee would go up to $500,000, plus court costs.

The long and short of it is that while he has a legal patent, no one seems to know how he patented an idea that has been in the public domain since the 70s.

We refused to pay him and invited him to sue us. Even better, I belive our industry created a corporation with the sole purpose of bankrupting this guy, er, I mean fighting any lawsuits this guy decided to file.

**Guyver** · 20 January 2000, 15:07

Odd...

We use a programming language (Progress) that has had an incorporated century "window" parameter since 1987. It just goes to show that some patent lawyers are completely out of touch... Now there should be a new breed of internet and computer savvy patent lawyers to differentiate the hype from the bull to the truly innovative....

I had specs and documentation written up on a medialess music disctribution system back in 1988/89. My only problem was memory storage shortcomings and compress/encryption/decryption capabilities.... I should have patented the idea back then, cause now we live in the age of MP3's and Nomad like systems. Almost exactly like my written notes... The only differences were that the music was stored on a nonvolatile memory module that was transferrable from home players to computer systems, to car players and personal "jogger" units, etc... I also had the idea that for a small fee the music could be insured so that if the unit was stolen, all purchased (downloaded) music would be retrieved onto the new replacement "storage unit". Also, the music was non-copyable due to encryption algorithms and keycodes the user had to enter to enable decryption on the module.

Ahh, shucks I'm only out of a couple o' million bucks for that industry...

(That is a true story folks, and one I feel mighty upset about whenever I think about it!)

Guyver - who should have been a millionaire. Next time I'll tell the story of how I invented the ATX power supply before there was such a thing. It had to do with stupid end users who liked to power off UNIX systems without doing shutdowns.....

**Taz** · 21 January 2000, 16:06

Unfortunately companies when faced with stiff competition would rather resort to legal action to prevent a product rather than develop something better. If Intel didn't have all that grief with their i820 chipset I guarantee they wouldn't have bothered taking VIA, FIC and all others to court. It's a case of if you can't beat them then sue them!

**Guyver** · 21 January 2000, 18:03

I'd have to agree on that point Taz...

Heck, if you can't beat them, steal from them.
If you can't steal from them, lie to them.
If you can't lie to them, cheat them.
If you can't cheat them, sue their @$$E$ off!

That appears to be the major corporations hidden policies anymore....

Maybe I'm too cynical... I don't know.

Guyver

**Thundrchez** · 21 January 2000, 19:22

My company takes a much different approach. We do have a fairly respectable patent portfolio which we continue to grow. However, we do not go out against our competitors with predatory practices threatening patent infringement lawsuits. Rather, we use our patent portfolio more as a self defense mechanism.

Chip company xyz comes to us threatening a lawsuit because we violated one of their patents. We then show them that they violated ten of our patents, and they had better go bugger off while they are ahead.

We also have a lot of agreements with other companies. Everybody pays everybody else some money, and your worth is determined by the number of patents that you have, etc. Nobody sues anybody because everybody is violating everybody else's patents.

And then we have lower life forms than pond scum like Rambust. They come whimpering around because they are total flop and they can't keep up. Instead of winning with a superior product, they are reduced to being lawyer parasites trying to suck the success out of other companies. DIE RAMBUST DIE!

Don't tread on us because we don't pay off the nuisance fee when somebody slaps a frivilous lawsuit on us. Only those who have yet to hear of our reputation are dumb enough to try that maneuver. We always fight to the bitter end, even if it ends up costing 10x the nuisance fee.

Announcement

Rambust is sueing Hitachi for making SDRAM

Rambust is sueing Hitachi for making SDRAM

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