What the heck was that popping sound I just heard?!? Sounded like
someone just opened up a can of worms?! :>
First, what is Rambus XDR DRAM?
XDR is the next generation of Rambus memory, the follow-up to the
DRDRAM used fairly successfully in the Playstation2 and much less
successfully in a very small number of PCs (computer memory focuses
much more on low latency, where RDRAM and this new XDR memory are
likely to due somewhat poorly at, while consoles and video cards focus
mainly on bandwidth, which is Rambus' main thrust).
XDR is a serial, point-to-point bus for memory that runs at 400MHz and
8x data rate for 3.2GT/s (you'll often see it labeled as "3.2GHz",
close enough for the marketing dept). It is 16-bits wide using
differential signaling (two pins per bit). Total bandwidth works out
to 6.4GB/s using 32-pins for data, giving it rather high bandwidth per
pin.
There are speculations claiming Playstation
3 will use NVIDIA's NV50 GPU and Rambus' XDR DRAM. This morning the rumor
caused RMBS stock price jumped almost two dollars a share in the pre-market.
Why am I not surprised? There are ALWAYS rumors about Rambus, both
good and bad, that cause the stock to go all over the place. In the
end though, little comes of it.
If I were you I REALLY wouldn't hold my breath for the PS3 to use
Rambus memory. Sure, it might happen, the PS2 does use Rambus memory
now, but nVidia has NEVER designed anything using RDRAM and has been
rather vocal about saying that it's not a good solution.
nVidia definitely IS working with Sony to make the GPU for the PS3,
though whether it will be the NV50 or some other chip is somewhat up
in the air. As you may have already heard, Sony, Toshiba and IBM are
all working on the main processor for the PS3, code-named "Cell", that
is supposed to be rather revolutionary. It's somewhat unknown just
how the memory subsystem will interface with these two chips.
Traditionally one of the big differences between a gaming console and
a standard computer is that the memory tends to be more tightly
associated with the GPU in a gaming console and the CPU in a general
purpose computer, though there are many exceptions to this rule.
Note that nVidia's latest and greatest GPUs for PCs have over 20GB/s
of memory bandwidth using GDDR3 memory. Achieving the sort of
bandwidth that Rambus likes to flash around is not really a difficult
task, it's just a matter of the cheapest and most effective way to get
that bandwidth.
One thing to keep in mind: GDDR memory is widely used and readily
available today. To the best of my knowledge there is NO ONE that is
making XDR memory.
I have short positions on Rambus. This month, I added more shorts when it
went as high as $27.50. But right now I can't quite digest this news. Don't
know if I should cover or add more shorts? Any opinion is appreciated.
Rambus is always going to be a *HIGH* risk stock. There are always
people floating around rumors, most of which have absolutely no basis
on fact. This stock is one of the ones that is based entirely off of
those rumors and has basically NOTHING to do with the actual
performance of the company.
Note that one thing is for certain, Rambus has kind of dug their own
grave as far as mainstream memory technology goes. They tried to sue
basically every memory manufacturer on the planet, and considering
that Rambus doesn't actually make anything, those memory manufacturers
are their ONLY customers. Suing (or at least threatening lawsuits)
against virtually every one of your customers is never a very good
idea, especially when the basis of that lawsuit might have been
fraudulent (original court ruling said that Rambus had committed
fraud, but that was later overturned in appeal where the judge decided
the Rambus folk were merely scumbags but not fraudsters).
