Ik kwam bij EETimes een nieuwsbericht over Rambus DRAM tegen (ook wel interessant ivm het vorige nieuwsbericht over de Intel Camino chipset). Volgens het artikel is vooral de grotere die-size (en daarmee een hogere prijs) van de Rambus DRAMs een probleem:
SAN FRANCISCO — Despite some jitters along the way, suppliers at a technology conference here reported that the infrastructure is in place for Rambus DRAMs to move into the PC market.Die size remains a concern, suppliers conceded, but all of them maintained that neither the 10-to-25-percent die-size penalty nor a higher price tag should hamper the acceptance of RDRAM for high-performance PCs.
[...] Die size is the most critical handicap for Rambus parts and is not likely to see improvement soon, panelists said. For Micron, 128-Mbit Rambus parts are 20 to 25 percent larger than their synchronous-DRAM counterparts, said Jeff Mailloux, DRAM marketing manager for Micron Technology Inc. (Boise, Idaho). Samsung Semiconductors Inc. claimed a similar number, while Hyundai Electronics quoted 10 to 15 percent.
[...] Rambus' price premium over SDRAM was not seen as a barrier by panelists, who believe that PC OEMs will pay extra for the added performance. One example mentioned repeatedly was the Sony Playstation 2, which uses Rambus' memory architecture to drive its ultra-high-end graphics. Rambus remains more expensive than SDRAMs, but panelists refused to classify the two as competitors, saying they aim for different uses. As DRAMs enter a new age where different types of memory apply to different devices, high-performance parts are worth more, panelists argued, and Rambus' price tag should be irrelevant.
"Rambus is this nice, fast, sexy device. You want performance, you've got to pay for it. There is no free lunch," Tabrizi said.
