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Hitachi Folds, Rambus Keeps On Rolling
macsen writes " Yet another company gives into Chipzilla's memory mongers, and it doesn't bode well. Hitachi appears to be going for an upfront settlement, and an agreement to drop litigation between the company and Rambus. Two companies in less than a week, and the Third Law of Thermodynamics begins to take hold.
See what
Tom's Hardware has to say." Check out a more informational original link. This is most ungood - see the first folding, as done by Toshiba last week.
Maybe so, but that's not the problem. The issue is, Rambus is trying to take an equal-performance (and cheaper) alternative to it's product and raise the price through royalties so it's not as competitive on the market.
Rambus claimed that the poor performance on P2's was due to slow CPU speeds and that faster CPU's would show how RDRAM shines. Well, between Tom's Hardware and the last review posted on here (don't have the link-sorry), on identical high-end P3's it's just barely the equal of SDRAM (at over twice the price). It shines in data streaming - one high-latency memory query, then lots of data flows. What SDRAM is good at is little file queries - I want to open a Word doc that's 4k. By the time RDRAM finishes it's slow query my SDRAM has already delivered the page...
If the world was fair, what people would do is boycott buying RDRAM modules, systems, etc. and buy more SDRAM. Enough to offset the higher royalties with economy in volume. Who cares if they're paying royalties - the chip makers are selling lots of SDRAM, there's no demand for RDRAM so they don't produce it, Rambus stock hits the toilet, then the royalties stop when Rambus goes bankrupt.
The world being what it is, the Rambus royalties will price SDRAM almost as high as RDRAM, people will put off buying it "until the price comes back down", by which time RDRAM boards and RIMMS will be more common. Big royalties to Rambus, lots of happy Rambus stockholders, lots of locked-in consumers. Gotta love the 'free-market' economy...
It is an excellent PR move for Hitachi, and Rambus doesn't need to care about its PR image - just the legal system.
This seems like better PR for RAMBUS than it is for Hitachi. If the headline was what was used for your topic (IE, Hitachi maintains that they don't violate patents) then I see that as face-saving.
What this says to the public about Hitachi is a mixed bag. To the technically literate and aware (IE, the people contributing in this discussion, we hope, except for the exceptions proving the rule) this says that Hitachi would rather bend over and take it than fight for the side of right. To everyone else, this means that RAM prices will go up. Some people are going to believe that this is just Altruism on Hitachi's part, but Corporations Have No Soul. What's good for the quarterly report is good for the company.
I do agree with you that this is just over the cost of litigation. Any Hitachi-issued press release (Or RAMBUS-issued) is just an attempt to do some last-minute ass covering.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
There is a reason we are all driving filthy petroleum burning cars despite having had the technology for clean hydrogen burning motors for over forty years. (The oil companies bought up the patents and buried them - only now are a few buses finally burning hydrogen fuel and filling the air with water vapor instead of carcinogens - the patents are expiring.)
No.
This something called "folklore." That is, information which is spread by word of mouth. Sometimes, folklore is true. More often, and in this case, it's not. I'm friends with a professor of English at The University of Colorado at Boulder whose specialization is folklore. He's even currently writing a book specifically on car lore. He looked into this, and found no factual support for these sorts of claims.
The reason has more to do with the cost of modifying and building assembly lines, developing assembly processes, etc. There's a big cost to switch over, and industries know all sorts of tricks and techniques for current technologies to make manufacture more cost efficent.
Of course, if you do find a patent which some automaker bought out and buried, you'll most probably make it into the credits of his book.
In a recent Intel press release, the company announced that boards that worked with both SDRAM and Rambus memory were being recalled because the systems were unstable. The systems were to be replaced with a new board with Rambus installed. The press release also announced that Intel was selling off their stake in Micron, which, as you know, manufactures SDRAM. This is a relatively obvious move on the part of Intel to distance themselves from SDRAM.
Soon customers will be forced to buy a more expensive and lower performing system because Rambus is bullying other companies around. They must have a good case. They probably got a very general patent on "fast memory" from the US Patent Office. Way to go, USPO!
Remember, You are unique...just like everyone else.
The reason is that high pressure hydrogen is dangerous to work with. If the tank ruptures in an accident, your car goes up like a bomb. The gas station (if you can find one) needs to be able to fill your tank at high pressure. You have the chicken and egg problem as well. You need a gas station that can fill it, and a mechanic that can work on it. (God help you if you neglect the maintenance on your fuel system.)
Okay, I have to pee on this statement now. Berkeley (Well, I think it was UCB) did a demo where the (admittedly expensive) honeycomb system they were using was filled, set in a quad, and shot. Not only did it not catch fire, but someone was able to walk up to it with a lighter and light it. It burned peacefully.
In addition, gasoline engines are, again, a known quantity. Think about rotary engines. In theory, they are simpler and more reliable. In reality, the compression ratio sucks, so you have to turbocharge it for decent performance, and turbochargers have their own reliability problems. As soon as you turbocharge a rotary engine, you increase the likelyhood that it will blow its apex seals. This is the moral equivalent of a ring job for a piston engine.
All this can be designed out, if you're willing to put in the effort. The final generation of RX-7s ended up being pretty reliable, and seriously badassed.
In any case, there are a number of technologies other than the rotary engine that are sweet ideas. Some of them are minor concepts (The Slant six, for example, was just a normal combustion engine, and the Boxer engines are too, just opposed) which give you great dividends, mostly in the area of reliability. Then again, Hemi heads are pretty simple, and tend to make a big difference.
Hydrogen is a great way to go if you can make the vehicles cheap enough, and provide a filling station. The best way to go with hydrogen at the moment is probably with a hybrid, but the real problem is the infrastructure. However, since there's fuel cells you can load with methanol, and methanol is sold at the pump in a couple gas stations in my town of 50,000, maybe that's the commuter car answer.
Incidentally, if you really want to make automotive technology take a quantum leap forward, find a way to defeat patents on SuperCapacitors and make them dramatically cheaper; Then we can all just go electric in a practical, inexpensive, lightweight fashion.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
If all RAM companies start paying Rambus - then Rambus will be able to pressure then to make the lame RDRAM instead of DDR-SDRAM. After all they already state that SDRAM licences are more expensive than Rambus ones.
:(
Whatever the consumer choose, he will have to indirectly pay Rambus. I guess this is pretty bad news for us all
Again we have a company that makes Rambus products (and gets Rambus warrents for this) settling with Rambus. When a Rambus prevails over a company that does not make Rambus memory, I will start to worry bigtime. Till then I approach this one with suspicion.
For me, RAMBUS is yet another example in a long string of Things That Should Have Failed. Rambus didn't win on technical merits, nor did it win on a better price point, no - it won on the basis of a bad decision by Intel and some legal wrangling. AMD quietly adopted Rambus, and even went as far as to make it so their next generation CPU will not take anything but Rambus.
As a consumer and a citizen of this country, I find this to be a failure in the capitalistic system. What happened to "equilibrium price" and competition to keep it down? It seemingly was thrown out. I blame it on government inaction, but others might blame it on government action - as this was caused directly by government intervention, specifically, a time-limited monopoly called a "patent" which prevents people from developing and purchasing alternatives at a lower price.
I look forward to the computer industry's UniCorp - a single massive company that owns everything, and you "lease" the products it produces and are subject entirely to its own bylaws and contracts. Competitors? No way. And all the while, our government officials and social elite will maintain that this was "the will of the market". No, it wasn't.. this isn't capitalism, this is facism with a different name!
Rambus is being backed by 2 of the most evil companies in the world; Intel and Sony. Their plan is ingenious. Have Rambus do the dirty work so that their names aren't sullied.
What we will begin to see over the next couple of years are memory makers moving to the Rambus platform. Why bother making other forms of memory when you're paying Rambus for a "licensing agreement"? It's really a form of taxation that we the consumers will have to kick out.
And for what? Memory that doesn't perform much better than the current technology? And at 5 times the cost?
-- You see, there would be these conclusions that you could jump to
Ok can someone clear up the muddied waters
:)
1) What does Rambus own patents for??
-- Does Rambus own patents for all kinds of SDRAMs available? Does this mean that the current low prices of SDRAM are going to go up due to manufacturers paying royalties to Rambus?
-- Does Rambus own patents for the newer DDR SDRAMs so that they will be a lot more expensive than without the royalties? (I saw a comment somewhere that Rambus' stock price went down when IBM announced DDR SDRAM suggesting that Rambus does not own patents to that)
2) Why?
-- Obviously this seems a ploy by intel to get RDRAM memory into the mainstream market. Since Rambus has not too much to gain. Their RDRAM royalties are lower than SDRAM, and SDRAM volume can't even be touched by RDRAM. So Rambus gains very little by pusing RDRAM.
-- If Rambus does not own patents to all kinds of SDRAM and DDR SDRAM, then whats to prevent manufacturers settling on the kinds for which they don't have to pay licensing fees to Rambus?
-- Did Rambus/intel/Sony coerce/bribe/threten Hitachi and Toshiba (Will not provide chipsets/peripherels/CPUs if you guys do not publicly state that you are paying us royalties). This makes Rambus' case stronger. Maybe Hitachi and Toshiba are not really paying Rambus any money (Undisclosed amount), or maybe infact they getting some perks (cheaper prices/licensing fees) for this public announcement.
3) What can we do?
-- What kind of memory can I buy that Rambus does not get a cent for? Obviously I don't want any performance hits. So are there and DDR SDRAMs available that Rambus does not get any money for? So that when I buy that Athelon MB with DDR SDRAM support, I can buy memory without paying Rambus tax?
4) When will Athelon/Duron MultiProcessor MBs come out?
-- Sorry just had to put this one in. If you know then please please please let me know
cheers.
SDRAM wasn't even a product until 1993. Rambus patents were filed in 1990. It's all right here:
http://www.dramreview.com
Don't forget that most Rambus patents were filed in 1990 and the Jedec meetings in question occured in the "mid 90's".
Yes, there were some revisions to the patent applications (which were not approved until 1999, if you can believe that) that came after some of the JEDEC meetings. But the fundamental claims of the patents could NOT have come from the JEDEC meetings, because the patents in question were filed YEARS earlier.
Also, some of the 1990 patents cover characteristics of "plain old" SDRAM. Well, SDRAM didn't appear until 1993, which is the basis for Rambus claiming royalty rights on SDRAM, and which chronology also forms the basis for claims to BACK ROYALTIES for much of the memory production not only in the future but which has also occured back to 1993.
The fact that Hitachi and Toshiba have settled should tell you something: the Rambus case is very, very strong. Hitachi didn't face trial for 2 years, and did not face ITC action until next march.
The Rambus royalties are 1% to 2% for RDRAM, up to 5% for some other items (network controllers, for example). Everyone makes it sound like the royalties are crippling. They average 1-2% and decrease with volume, depending on the royalty agreement and stock offsets. If Dram prices go up 50%, please ask the manufacturers why a 1-2% royalty caused it.
Does anyone realize that for years (and perhaps still) Texas Instruments collected similar or larger royalties on virtually all memeory just because they held some patents on packaging silicon IC's in DIP packages ?
Royalties are not at all unusual in this business, almost all products carry either some cash royalties or some "cross licensing" royalties (in which no cash changes hand because two companies have signed mutual agreements in which each can use the other's patents royalty free).
I'm tired of reading articles trashing Rambus, making them sound greedy and Machevellian for doing something that all high-tech companies do every day. If you are a high-tech company, you ARE ALSO an IP company. It's just that Rambus is EXCLUSIVELY an IP company. But that doesn't give people a right to trash them for collecting a 1-2% royalty on technology which they developed prior to anyone else.
BTW, Rambus CEO Geoff Tate is a former AMD VP. AMD is a Rambus partner.
---
SDRAM and DDR-SDRAM aren't going away anytime soon despite whatever patents Rambus claims to own. Rambus have stated that the licence fees for RDRAM technology will be lower than for SDRAM/DDR-SDRAM. However, SDRAM and DDR-SDRAM will still be much cheaper for quite some time to come because the manufacturing cost of RDRAM will always be higher than for comparable SDRAM. This is the main reason why RIMMs are so much more expensive than DIMMs - not because of the licensing costs. See this EETimes story for more information.
There are a lot of patents out there that are trivial, overbroad or have plenty of previous prior art. We need to start treating abuses of the patent system as fraud and prosecuting companies for commiting it. You could probably get convictions for oh, about 100% of the patest stories on /. over the last year.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
As I have noted in earlier, more detailed posts, like this one, this agreement is simply a classic example of the 'patent sharing' (not always entirely voluntary) that is standard practice within the Japanese patent system. I'm not saying that it is entirely innocuous -- much of the Japanese system of doing business could be framed in terms that would provoke extreme outrage from much of the Western geek community (and indeed the business community). However, I *am* saying that it is not only part of 'business as usual' today, but has been an element of the electronics industry, back before the first cheap (and shoddy) Japanese transistor radios -- i.e. all our lives! It's not a disturbing new trend, if anything, it's milder than it once was.
Yes, Rambus isn't Japanese -- but look at its list of partners (recently divided up, regrettably into separate pages for each technology)
This system has several major goals: preserving hierarchy and the Japanese business structure (which is very different than ours, with strong, almost monopolistic vertical integration, pan-industry consortia, and many intermediate layers of supernumary distributors), 'maintaining relationships' in the Japanese sense, perhaps most importantly allowing Japanese industrial development in the face of foreign patents (in the early decades).
It is an expression of their culture, which retains very significant feudal elements. It would be disruptive and disrespectful to expect them to instantly adopt *our* values, as if we had some intrinsic superiority. If they even attempted this, to a greater degree than MITI already does, it could massively disrupt their economy and society (e.g. the supernumary distributors are a major part of the economy and cannot be eliminated easily; also, their approach to lifetime career and company affiliation could not be more alien to Silicon valley, where even founders like Steven Jobs leave, compete, return, etc.)
_________________
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I've seen alot of griping here in the comments about Intel and their anti-competitive policies and where is the DOJ now, etc.
This situation will be a perfect example of why AntiTrust law is outdated and flawed as these strategies Intel is employing will end up making them even more unattractive to PC makers.
Who wants to get locked into a proprietary Slot configuration, memory subsystem and memory chip type when neither the performance nor the price give a significant benefit?
Intel will sink it's component business all by itself, without the DOJ's help.
Intergalactics - A pretty cool strategy game in a java applet
Insanity is the last line of defence for the master diplomat. But you have to lay the groundwork early.
I see allot of posts decrying the evils of Rambus and/or its parent companies.
This is silly. The companies are not evil for working within the framework of the law to protect their profits.
The patent system, on the other hand, is evil, if one defines evil to be that which is harmful to progress and the public good.
There are only so many ways to interface memory with data. There are only so many ways to synch memory timing. Each patent provides an entity with what, in terms of computing, amounts to an eternal monopoly. Eternal, because 20 years from the filing date is an eternity in terms of how fast the technology moves. Or, at least, has until now.
I do not think it will be long before every useful method for interfacing one computing component with another, be it memory, mass storage, or what have you, will be patented by someone. Probably several someones, quite likely with conflicting patent claims. What then? No competition, as each entity will have a government enforced monopoly in its domain, which it may cross license to a competitor in the same way Rambus does - at a higher price to make the competitor's (possibly more popular or superior) product less competetive.
Without competition there will be no incentive to innovate.
With less innovation technological progress will be slowed, quite possibly to a crawl.
Then, of course, the patent advocates will proclaim that 20 years from the date of filing is a perfectly reasonable amount of time for a patent, as the technology is still in use 20 years later.
Of course, they neglect to point out that the reason the technology is still in use 20 years later is because progress has been stifled for so long by the very system of patents they advocate.
There is a reason the planes we fly in have 50 year old designs, despite advances in materials and aeronotical sciences. (Only now are some experimental craft finally using comosites and making real progress again -- many of the patents have expired!) There is a reason we are all driving filthy petroleum burning cars despite having had the technology for clean hydrogen burning motors for over forty years. (The oil companies bought up the patents and buried them - only now are a few buses finally burning hydrogen fuel and filling the air with water vapor instead of carcinogens - the patents are expiring.) Now we will begin seeing this same, slow crawl of technology coming to the area of computer science as well - the patent mongers have discovered us, and are locking up all of our ideas.
These areas of research are all characerized by an initial explosion of new technology followed by glacial progress. Not because people are unimaginative, or because all the possiblities have been explored, all the discoveries made. No. It is because all of the fundamental ideas are locked away, privatized into someones property, and further research is thereby severely stifled. Now we have the agonizing displeasure of seeing it happen to our field of endeavor as well.
Patents are bad for software. That much is obvious to nearly everyone here. What is less obvious, and far more insidious, is that patents are bad for hardware as well. In fact, patents are bad for every realm of scientific and technological endeavor: they lock down ideas, lock people out possibilities they might otherwise have explored (and that might have otherwise led to even greater discoveries), they stifle innovation and yes, even economic incentive. One guy gets a monopoly and maybe even gets rich, two or three others with the same idea (and maybe even a better implementation of it) are locked out, and a hundred others are prevented from making their contribution at all.
How much science, how much progress, has been lost to this despicable system? How much better could our lives have been, if only our thoughts and ideas hadn't been treated like land claims in a bad western?
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