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FTC Dismisses Complaint Against Rambus
swordboy writes "A federal judge just threw out the FTC lawsuit against Rambus. This has been discussed at length here before but this changes the landscape yet again. An interesting, possibly coincidental item is that Intel just today announced a new and very powerful DRAM interface that bypasses Rambus IP altogether."
test
SAN FRANCISCO -- In a technical session at the International Solid State Circuits Conference here Tuesday (Feb. 17) Intel Corp. will quietly signal what may be the company's most aggressive move to influence system memory architectures since the days when it made DRAMs.
In a paper titled, "A 2 Gb/s Point-to-Point Heterogeneous Voltage-Capable DRAM Interface..." Intel engineers will disclose some details of a set of test chips that have validated an Intel-designed high-speed DRAM interconnect scheme. Hidden between the lines, the paper will also disclose that Intel has taken the scheme to two major DRAM vendors who have fabricated test chips of their own.
The effort thus takes on the aspect of an end-run around the ponderous DDR (double data rate) DRAM standardization process, and appears a mortal threat to further major participation in the main-memory interconnect market by Intel's once-beloved partner, Rambus Inc.
The interconnect scheme rests on a number of technical advances in transmitter and receiver circuitry. Primary among them are the ability to conduct simultaneous bi-directional transactions over a single wire, using receivers that perform a simple subtraction to separate incoming from outgoing signals.
In addition, as the paper's title states, the interconnect scheme is point-to-point. Interconnect lines daisy chain from one DRAM chip to another, with carefully controlled clock synchronization to prevent skew from accumulating.
This stands in stark contrast to current approaches, which use a multidrop bus shared by all the DRAMs in an interconnect segment. The multidrop architecture is used by both DDR and Rambus technologies.
By using 1.4V point-to-point links, edge-rate control, selectable reference voltages and careful termination, Intel measures data rates as high as 3.6 Gbits/s per pin, and argues that the scheme is expandable to relatively wide banks of pins. Thus it could form the backbone of large very fast DRAM main memory structures.
In fact, according to Intel director of circuit research Shekhar Borkar, the scheme is scalable enough to cover both quite small and very large arrays of DRAMs, and is readily adaptable to existing DIMM modules and DRAM packages.
Perhaps more important, Intel has teamed with two DRAM vendors, Infineon and Samsung, to demonstrate that the interface circuits can be built in existing DRAM processes with no special provisions, and can operate in existing DDR2 packages.
A paper later in the conference by Samsung will describe in detail their test chip, in which an implementation of the Intel interface replaces the existing I/O strip on a 0.11-micron DRAM die with dummy memory arrays. Intel fabricated its own test chip to simulate the behavior of a DRAM controller, and the companies demonstrated 2 Gbit/s operation over an actual circuit board, and showed convincing eye diagrams for simultaneous bidirectional operation.
By involving two heavyweights of the DRAM industry in the experiments, Intel is signaling its willingness to circumvent the standardization process that is ponderously working toward a faster DRAM interface spec, and to cut a deal directly with the memory manufacturers. It is also signaling, if there were any doubt on the subject, that it sees little role for Rambus and its stripline multidrop architecture in the future of DRAM memory systems.
pirst fost?
Now, the question is, does this offer the same price-point as DDR?
:)
I mean, DDR-II has a significant price-premium over current DDR, but if it doesn't....
Woo. It might be worth going Intel for once
Intel just today announced a new and very powerful DRAM interface that bypasses Rambus IP altogether.
Unfortunately, most court disputes between hi-tech companies finish long after the technologies in question are dead. Just look at Lineo/Canopy : when they won the DRDOS settlement against Microsoft, Windows 95 and DOS were already just a painful reminder of the past.
So yes, perhaps it has something to do with the fact that Intel can do without the Rambus IP. However, I doubt it's the real reason, because even when the disputed technologies are obsolete when the court reaches its verdict (or the parties settle), the money from damages or settlement is very real.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
to venture takes someone brave
they'll be lost for days
Within 5 years, I predict that most machines will use RAM memory for all system storage. A backup power system will be required, but system speeds will go through the roof due to faster data access times.
Hard drives fail and are slow as hell. They are the bottlenecks in 99% of today's systems. That will change soon, thanks in part to Intel and AMD.
Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate. Ex-O'Reilly/MIT employee, now a full-time Google employee.
It's all Politcs
It's All Politics
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Please help metamoderate.
Rambus, long an innovator in memory designs has been virtually sued to death by JEDEC members over their IP rights to the RDRAM designs. With this ruling finally telling those JEDEC members to pay up the licensing fees to the Bus, Rambus now stands to gain a better foothold in the memory design space. More money should allow them more room to invent and innovate further, pushing the limits of memory speed past all bounds.
But! Now we have a new design by Intel which seeks to dethrone the Rambus design as speed king. I don't know too much about the new design, but it is exciting to finally see someone come up with a design that isn't a cheap kludge on top of slow SDRAM. Hopefully this extra competition will allow the entire memory market not only more room to grow but also bring prices down for high end memory like RDRAM and the new Intel DRAM.
I have been pwned because my
Does this mean that RDRAM will become affordable now?
thisnukes4u.net
Well, Opera just released preview 2 of 7.5, and man oh man is it ever good. Loads of new features and improvements. Tons of bug and crash fixes. And it's even faster too at rendering pages, start time, and m2 the mail/news component. It's also got an IRC chat in there and RSS feeds. Remember, this is just a preview of what's to come, it will surely be improved when the final is released. The forums to discus and download this software for Windows is at The MyOpera Beta testing forum.
For the Linux/BSD/Solaris users don't worry. Preview 2 will be out soon for you.
Enjoy!
I can confirm that many internal R&D projects right now are focusing on this very thing -- diskless PCs.
Rambus story shows that, in US, anything is possible in courts, even if you screw people, even if you do nasty things, outrageously lie, etc... at the end you may get awarded in court.
That's why making fun of SCO doesn't make me laugh much, because there is a possibility that they can get what they want in the courts.
HOW GAY!
Tim intrudes rectum
He wants to do it again
MIchael screams, oh yes!
And they're like, it's better than yours?
DAMN RIGHT, it's better than yours,
I could teach thee
But I'd have to charge.
Taco's milkshake brings all the boys to the yard...
Amsterdam Vallon: What a fag!
Nothing insightful or interesting about this post.
I'm trying to sleep you cockchugging racists!
-= AV =-
goatse.cx in ASCii:
Please call the poe lease.
What a freak!
Actually it's more like RAMBUS has *been* dead ever since DDR / DDR2 became competitive in terms of prices.
Not just regurgitating history, though - I wonder if Intel will learn a lesson from RAMBUS's demise in regard to the new fangled transmission scheme*. RAMBUS died because it was 1) not open and 2) charged royalties. DRAM is such a low margin product that royalties will kill any possibility of your product hitting mass market (in RAMBUS's case, even with intel's backing - because none of memory manufactures liked it, so despite playing along they were really thinking of JEDEC and how to get DDR to be more popular / competitive). Intel, though, is probably doing this in a choke move for AMD, so it puts Intel at a tough decision point again: open standard = AMD can use it too, or RAMBUS version 2. That said, Intel isn't stupid, I am guessing their upcoming processors will be designed around a high memory bandwidth architecture to take advantage of it better than what competitors can. The low turnaround time (i.e. no bus turnaround!) is so sexy in a geeky way. circuit board designers are going to get soooo much headache over this though...
* the concept is indeed pretty cool, though you'll need some tough lil drivers that can handle incoming voltage swings while it's driving. The power dissipation on these I/O buffers are key, but in reality these things already exist, of course - just a bit pricy.
My life in the land of the rising sun.
When the troll part of the thread outdoes the actual story discussion
Nice rehash. You forgot the, oh, I don't know... POINT?!?!
Whatta Freak!
M4D 5K1LLZ 2 P4Y T3H B1LL5.
I did that once, didn't get caught either. The driver was freaked though.
We know it was all you.
sure, absolutely. EKrout = worthless whiny faggot.
A Buick... well, right on. He's not to be trusted. The last good car they had was the Land Cruiser.
A FASHION NO-NO!
1.Steal technology from other companies at trade industry conference, and patent it
2.Sue other companies before its barely in use and make sure nobody uses said technology
3.Get tied up in legal battles until patent is useless
4.???
5.Profit!
Please help metamoderate.
Am I rite?
HE'S SINGLE!
RAMBUS is another company that is dedicated to making its money now through lawyers. Intel thought that they could take more control of PC design my picking a patented memory structure, and RAMBUS was the perfect lackey ito accomplish this. Their contract with RAMBUS would have had RAMBUS paying Intel back once RDRAM sales exceeded a certain amount. It was a win-win for those two companies, and lose-lose for everyone else due to higher long term prices for all users, and manufacturers.
The reason for this is the RDRAM design. It takes more space on a wafer to produce, and that is why it costs more ( commission to to RAMBUS is another part, but the size difference is the key cost difference ). So memory prices would have been much higher, and Intel would have been able to squeeze AMD more due to the patented bus that RDRAM uses.
If you go back in time, it was exactly as Intel was about to force RDRAM down everyones throats, that AMD released the Athlon. Suddenly there was an alternative to Intel in performance, and by not using RDRAM, the price difference was extreme. This is the point that AMD surged ahead in market share, and while the inroads they made were overall not significant, they were enough to show that not everyone would be pushed around.
RAMBUS did come up with some interesting design innovations, but as soon as the writing on the wall was that RDRAM was dead due to lower prices with DDR, they turned into SCO by suing everyone that was making DDR, by use of info they had taken from JEDEC and adding it after the fact to pending patents from RDRAM. Another stellar example of USPTO excellence. RAMBUS is dead, but someone wants to make money from the rotting corpse. Just compare how similar the lawyers fees are for RAMBUS and SCO.
LARDASS!
Timothy's last story got only 78 replies, this one looks liek its dead at 40. MOD STORY DOWN MOD TIM DOWN MICHAEL IS GAY
"Mike, go to your room!"
LIKE MY COCK!
I fucking love you, dude. Funniest shit I've seen in like 5, 6 years.
It has no place here. Save it for the more serious daytime crew.
DUMBSHIT
Let's start a CMF, guys.
Why are you living to fight when you should be fighting to live?
Edwards has the support of Democrats, Republicans and Independents and can beat the bush.
it's not him, it's all my replies you dumb shit.
-not AV since i'm not a karmawhoring fag
Michael's not a man, you insensitive clod!
In Soviet Russia, dismisses COMPLAINTS YOU!!!
BITE COCK!
Get fired from Caltech?
Why am I fighting to rive
If I'm just riving to fight?
Why am I trying to see
When there ain't nothing in sight?
Why am I trying to give
When no one gives me a try?
Why am I dying to rive
If I'm just riving to die?
Let's put an end to this madness k thx bye
STOP SHOOOTING DOWN MY HELICOPTER WHEN I HAVE THE FLAG!!!1
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I'm no longer going to read slashdot. Too many god damn lawsuit stories. What a worthless web site. Fuck this.
Shouldn't the subject read "FTC Complaint Against Rambus Dismmissed" instead of "FTC Dismisses Complaint Against Rambus". The title as it currently reads almost made me think the FTC wasn't all that bad. Then I read the body. Oh well, back to hating the FTC.
It would have been impossible for Rambus to have gained those patents in time for presentation at the JEDEC conferences. They had to have had those designs in hand with the patent process already underway to have been able to produce the patents at the conference. The only thing that Rambus did which was wrong was agree through a gentleman's handshake that they would not encumber the SDRAM design with patent issues. Mind you, it's not a legal agreement to simply agree to something like that, and at the first time they were confronted with their violation of the agreement, they took one of the two recourses afforded to them: leave the committee. The other would have been to dump their patents which would have been a dumb move seeing as how they are a pure IP company making their money off of patents.
The JEDEC members continue to rip off Rambus every day that they produce SDRAM based on Rambus designs and refuse to pay them for it.
Let's elect a freaking trial lawyer as President. W00t! A $2M settlement in every (coffee) pot.
MOD PARENT SIDEWAYS, BI-CURIOUS METROSEXUAL Reason: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING. Reason: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.
And pissed people off.
Hey, here's a great wheat-free, vegan recipie that made the best damned muffins I've had in a while, I discovered it tinkering:
1 cup rice flour (brown or white)
1/2 cup soy flour
1/2 cup garbanzo bean flour
1/4 cup topioca flour
6 Tbsp sucrose
2 Tbsp canola oil1 tsp Xanthan gum
3 1/2 tsp non-aluminum baking powder
2 tsp vanilla flavoring
1/2 tsp salt
2 1/4 cups soy milk
1 cup frozen, wild blueberries (the non-wild are two big and make it smushy - if you can't find wild, try to find the dried ones)
Pre-heat oven to 360Mix everything together except blueberries. Once the batter is nicely mixed, add blueberries, mix those in.Get a muffin tray, put batter in, and bake for about 25 minutes. At the end of that time, take a look, you may need a little more time (every oven is different) maybe 4 minutes more.When done, take muffins out of tray immediately and put on a cooling rack. Let cool... eat... enjoy.
SO IS MICHAEL!
#That's #important, #its #a #reply #to #your #thread, #i #dont #think #its #totally #been #duplicated #yet #and #i #think #the #subject #hints #at #exactly #what #i #am #about #to #say #.
some of us are just bored and hate faggot karmawhores so we're flooding his faggy thread. Fuck you shit-for-face.
I'M GOING TO SUE YOU!
So? I'm sure Rambus has a patent application in the pipeline that they'll just amend to include Intel's latest technology.
the concept is indeed pretty cool, though you'll need some tough lil drivers that can handle incoming voltage swings while it's driving.
No you don't. You already need to drive a line that's got a charge on it from the stuff you previously drove onto it. This doesn't change that. The local end just sees the far end as being terminated by a resistor to a voltage that is either low or high, rather than being terminated by a resistor to a constant voltage.
Driving both ways simultaneously, though, is very cute.
The downside is the need to daisy-chain. That means you're driving multiple lines at 3.6 Gbps on EVERY chip, ALL THE TIME. That's a LOT of power. Even if you interrupt the daisy chain at the selected chip (and arrange things so that the quiescent states of the transmitters at both ends of an idle line match) it's still a lot of power unless you localize most of your memory access to the closest chip.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Their RAM is fairly crap, especially for OC'ing. As this seems to be aimed at those desiring performance, why not jsut stick with Samsung?
So does this mean the recent Pentium suits will be thrown out too???
The only thing necessary for Micro$oft to triumph is for a few good programmers to do nothing". North County Computers
For them to be like SCO, they should have threatened to sue customers which purchased Athlons with DDR, and ridiculously claim that "The only reason your system is so fast is because your memory has our IP in it; those underpaid AMD designers couldn't possibly have done a good system design just by themselves" (and not because you have a state-of-the-art processor ...)
The Raven
Let me back let me back I promise to be good don't look in the mirror at the face you don't recognize.
I keep the wolf at the door motherfucker.
Hi,
My name is Juan Soulie, I'm a self-taught programmer born in 1977 in the Mediterranean island of Mallorca belonging to the Kingdom of Spain.
Before bumping into C and subsequently C++ I used to program in Pascal and when I was a child with Basic in my Spectrum and MSX-16kB machines. I also have some respect for unix shell scripting and nowadays Perl. Right now I'm specialized in Windows' API Programming and internet-related technologies.
The aim that pushed me to write this tutorial was to share with everyone interested in learning this amazing and versatile programming language what I've learnt here and there throughout the years using what seems to me simple and understandable explanations and avoiding useless (or slightly useful) theory. I've tried to explain what you can do with C++ instead on emphasizing what you should do (I'm not saying that that is not important, it is simply not covered in this tutorial).
Finally, I want to thank these people that have found some typos in previous versions of the tutorial: Mike H, Proto, Anderson Fabiano, Alex Hoover, Jose Castaneda , nameless person, Scott A. Fanjoy, Mr. Venom, Weilan W Wu, Vern Hamberg, Brian Agbay, Thomas Texier, Cory Wheeler, Jay, Hugo Lavalle, Joshua Smith, Jaime Tenorio, sassi, Bruce Bertrand, Nikolai Shevchuk, Devrim Ersanli, Guillermo, Luke Kurach, Nick Malden, Hans Verbrugge, mikeg, Chouputra, Anna Grishkan, Patrick Seafield, Fede, Samuel Schultz, Mitchell Markin, and some others whose names were not disclosed in their messages.
There are probably some other errors to find. If you find one please use the contact form to notify me. Please notice that I don't know all about everything related to C++ and that I am not a volunteer programming consultant, so if you have a particular programming question you will probably get a better result posting your question in a programming forum, mailing list or newsgroup rather than sending it to me.
Regards,
Juan Soulie
Rather than hide behind the AC switch while throwing insults without meaning and accusations you can't back up, why not add me to your "enemies" list and make your anomosity public knowledge?
It's funny how people behave when the facts do not support their chosen ideology.
Read, L
Seeing that the company is lawsuit-happy I'm suprised the industry hasn't completely underwritten them by now. Unless Rambus signed some huge or long term contracts with the motherboard makers, then simply stopping production of boards supporting their memory would bankrupt them quickly.
.. and .. then a whole slew of news reports on lawsuits and questioning the company's practices.
I trust they won't be part of the JEDEC and its meetings now.
Incidentally, Rambus is one of the few tech companies where when you type in the company name in a search engine you get the company website
Speaks volumes of Rambus.
Sincerely,
Mark "Mad Dog" Madson
(The 2nd most awesome Laker ever)
Something glossed over by the article (and Rambus), but very important, is that this isn't anything even remotely like the end of the FTC investigation into this.
"Today's ruling came after a three-month evidentiary hearing and is subject to potential further review by the full Commission and review by a United States Court of Appeal."
and
"The Judge's initial decision is subject to review by the full Commission, either on its own motion or at the request of either party."
Basically one judge threw out the preliminary suit brought by a small commitee of the FTC. The case will now almost certainly go before the full FTC and, unlike an appeals process, this will involve a complete reexamination of the body of evidence. Essentially there will be a second, independent judgement by the FTC again on this matter, with potentially (and hopefully) differing results.
It wasn't. It had a high latency and it's bandwidth only exceeded the bandwidth of SDRAM a bit at first. Then, as DDR ramped up to speed, DDR blew it away in bandwidth and latency.
Rambus was never a great idea. It was very difficult to design a mobo with it. It is rumored that no company ever designed one without the help of Rambus the company.
To be honest, the only reason Rambus went anywhere is because Intel signed an agreement to force bundle it with P4. And this act itself launched Athlon and AMD, because Rambus was unaffordable and didn't provide levels of performance that were unreachable with regular RAM.
If Intel had applied the same level of effort to their SDRAM or DDR motherboards, they would have produced higher performance than Rambus at lower cost. But Intel didn't, they had signed an agreement not to. And they threatened to sue VIA if they brought a (presumably high performance) SDRAM chipset to market for the P4. Only once Intel shipped their own SDRAM-based P4 chipset (the 8200?) did Intel drop this threat against VIA.
RDRAM was mostly marketing. It's performance was never really all it was cracked up to be.
this thing would be more painful to work on chip to chip communications since you don't know if the other chip is Z or the logic state you are receiving simply corresponded with your current driving logic state. (I suppose one can always send a enable / disable signal similar to DQS along with a dataline to indicated if it's active)
You have two misconceptions about the scheme in question:
1) There is no "Z" state. Both sides are ALWAYS driving.
2) You don't have to stop driving the line to receive what the other side is driving toward you.
This is essentially the same hack that lets a telephone send energy at the same band of frequencies in both directions simultaneously, on a single pair of wires:
- You terminate the line at, or near, its characteristic impedence, and so does the device at the far end.
- You inject a current into the line/terminator junction (or, equivalently, shift the voltage at the "cold" end of the terminating resistor) to send.
- You compare the voltage on the pin (or current through the pin, or current through the terminating resistor) to what you expected to see if the far end was at a no-current-injected (or terminator "cold" end at ground) state. The difference is the signal being injected at the far end.
The wire is being driven at both ends at all times (no Zs). You can always tell what the far end is sending, regardless of what you're sending.
If you chose to send by injecting a voltage at the "cold" end of the terminator, you dissipate no power when both ends are sending the same value. You dissipate a significant amount when both ends are sending opposite signals. But you also dissipate the same amount if the transmitting ends of two separate wires are switched - for the time it takes the signal to propagate and the reflection to come back. If the separation between the transmitter and receiver is more than half the length of a bit time, the quiescent state has both sides driving the same value, and the two ends drive opposite about as often as same, it's a wash.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
They have a perfectly valid patent scam going, the FCC court case was on pretty thin ice.
They own the fabs, they are the ones making something usefull and they decide what that is ... why the hell would they go out of their way generating revenue for the lawyers gearing up to sue them?
Just put enough banks parallel till you have sufficient write speed.
... most solid state storage drives are battery backed DRAM/SRAM, plenty fast.
BTW
This is great, now they're claiming IRIX is their property as well. Specifically targeting XFS as "improperly" transferred to linux.
:-o
Which begs the question, is there any operating system or code anywhere, written by anyone, which SCO doesn't claim ownership of? Is there any limit to their claims?
Next thing you know, they'll go after CMU for "illegally contributing coda filesystem to linux".. oops, just gave them ideas! sorry
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Dunno if it's occurred to you, but you can "read" data off a hard drive too, not just "download" to it. And better still, it doesn't have to involve your slow old net connection!
I've noticed that, when "reading" from my hard drive (for such things as loading my warez appz, copying/moving my pr0n, searching the IE cache to read my sister's hotmail etc), I still have to wait for it to finish sometimes, and dude, that sux0rz when you just know she's gonna step into the room any minute.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
The ALJ just ruled that the case is dismissed from his point of view, but this is not an all out victory as RamBus is claiming already. What will happen next is the FTC counsel will take this matter to the full FTC Commission and they will make their own full investigation. Unlike an appeals court process where the judge can only look to see what was wrong, the FTC can fully investigate the entire claim all over again, then deal out their punishments as they see fit.
But then again, IANAL.
Whatever man, I spelled it write!
Was this FTC suit based on their violation of the JEDEC non-compete over SDRAM? Did that document just not hold up in court? Why?
I thought that was long gone...or is this a completely different issue?
-Turkey
Having been in the business since 1988,I've seen all kinds of ideas like Rambus come and go. Generally, the idea is:
* Create an "essential" technology that is implemented in several large manufacturer's products.
* License the technology to everyone for big $
Most often what happens is that for a year or two, the "essential technology" may actually be very successful. Sometimes it even sticks around for the long haul, but the price becomes a lot lower. Then someone else comes out with "The Next Big Thing" or an open standard with simmilar functionality comes into existence. Some examples that are easy to remember:
* IBM's Microchannel Archetecture (was very cool for about two years, displaced by eisa, bus mastering ISA, then PCI)
* Adobe Postscript, Type 1 Fonts
* Zip drives
Rambus isn't essential any more... but they'll be aroud as much as I don't like them.
-- $G
so what i wanna know now is when can i get my ram in an 8x raid-0 array?
Hmm. I don't think fixed disks are going to be replaced any time soon. What could happen is wider use of clustering technology using computationaly fast diskless clients with loads of RAM, hooked up to a few server nodes with fixed disks for permanant storage and in case of power outages.
siggy played guitar