AMD is a very conservative company; the last time they did something
Obviously I don't know much about how these things are arranged so
pardon me for asking stupid questions.
That's not a problem. I once asked many stupid questions and became
'smarter', or so I'd like to think : )
But why is it not possible for AMD to have been researching and
experimenting on the ZRAM possibility, finds that it will work well
with what they have before deciding "ok, let's pay money for this
stuff and announce that we actually will be using this".
Look at what AMD said:
"We've looked at data from Innovative Silicon and it looks very
promising. We still need to assure ourselves that this will work in our
own application. We need to see how it scales and we need to make our
own test vehicles," he added.
The 'he' refers to Craig Sander a VP at AMD. ISTM that he's implying
AMD hasn't done any testing of this. Also note that:
Jones, an executive experienced in intellectual property licensing,
also declined to comment on AMD's timetable for introduction of Z-RAM
but offered a more general perspective. "In the past it has been two
years from when you sign a deal to when it is in production."
Also, if AMD was going into production they would be ponying up A LOT
more money. Its the sort of thing that wouldn't be buried in EETimes,
but would be picked up by financial analysts, etc.
Not only that, but Innovative Silicon would be crowing rather loudly
about their success if AMD were to go to mass market with ZRAM....or
possibly IPOing. AMD would need to pay them a lot of extra $$,$$$,$$$
to keep quiet about such things.
After all, it's less risky and better than spending big cash for
something that might turn out not to work. Nobody at Innovative has to
know that AMD is quietly trying out the same stuff if AMD never
produce/sells anything with ZRAM.
Gotcha, so you mean AMD looking internally at the same stuff. That's
not really going to happen:
1. AMD doesn't have spare engineers to look at stuff like this
2. They would have been talking about it if they had looked at it
before.
3. AMD doesn't really do fundamental R&D work like this (no offense to
AMD R&D employees)
4. It would probably be illegal as hell to do that (i.e. copy ZRAM
technology exactly), since ISi has patents on it for sure.
Even if they do know AMD is trying out the technology, couldn't AMD
point it out to them that "you let us try to make it work with our
chip first. If it works out into a successful implementation, we'll
pay for it and you get a major marketing boost. Or we look for
something else and you continue to find your first big break."
That's basically what this is about. AMD's not saying they are going
to use the technology, just committing to a preliminary investigation.
Does that answer most of your questions?
DK
