Samsung, 's werelds grootste RDRAM bakker, heeft aangegeven dat het niet genoeg chips kan leveren om te voldoen aan de vraag. Deze is namelijk omhoog geschoten sinds de lancering van de Pentium 4 en de agressieve marketing campagnes van Intel om hem te promoten. Het gevolg hiervan is dat de prijzen voor het Rambus geheugen weer gaan stijgen. Als reactie hierop zal Samsung de productiecapaciteit verhogen naar 20 miljoen 128Mbit chips in december:
"One day, I woke up and found that the once-idle RDRAM line is fully running like a fire house and only able to produce 6 million to 7 million 128Mbit equivalent RDRAM chips," said Kim Ilung, marketing director of Samsung Electronics. "Intel (is asking) us to secure 10 million RDRAM chips a month."
Intel's aggressive move to expand its RDRAM-supported Pentium 4 is behind the surge of RDRAM, Samsung said. "Intel is about to launch an aggressive Pentium 4 expansion targeting 60 to 70 PC makers through price cuts for its package of Pentium 4, Rambus modules and i850 chipset," said Choi Suk-Po, senior analyst of Meritz Securities in Seoul.
The Rambus shortage has already begun to push up its price to $18 per piece, three times higher than the SDRAM equivalent. In response, Samsung plans to ramp up its RDRAM up to 20 million 128Mbit equivalent of RDRAM chips in December, which would then account for 37 percent of its total DRAM output.
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