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Just as a matter of (nautical) interest, Paul, what kind of yacht? Sailing I would hope, size, make?
Cheers
Cor
Hey Paul, on faster and narrower:
you stated:
Anyhow, the thing is that Rambus is faster and narrower, DDR is slower but wider
Should be:
Anyhow, the thing is that Rambus is faster per pin and uses a narrower protocolized bus, DDR is slower per pin but uses a wider bus
Cheers
Cor
(you're back from your holiday?)
A casualty of the DOJ antitrust investigation or simply a passed over executive who expected the top job?
Hi Threejack,
Could be neither. He is probably a millionaire now ( a despicable practice in large companies imo), so why go on? Not everybody wants to stay in the ratrace until their heart attack.
I had my own business, sold it to a listed company in 1987 (on the very day the stock market tanked), became a board member of that company and decided after the obligatory 4 years to retire at 49. I have a lot less money than I would have had had I continued, but enough is enough, I get by and have now moved to a less expensive more relaxed country:)
Cheers
Cor
Hi Elixe,
I don't think the option would be to have both on the chip at the same time, but one never knows;)
All licenses to our intellectual property cells include patent licenses to technologies for use within the specific cells.
This raises an interesting question: if there is some IP by somebody else in the cell (e.g. AMD), all hell will break loose, because then there would have to be cross-licensing, a dirty word:)
Cheers
Cor
Hey Skeptic,
using long strangles or straddles (take your pick of names - they're the same thing).
They are close family. A straddle is a special form of a strangle where the two strike prices are equal.
The technique you describe to protect a short with calls is also a good one and equivalent to protecting a long position with puts. Done both;)
Cheers
Cor
re EPO update
I am not certain if this has been posted (I look at the EPO link above regularly for updates, which should come any minute now, boy they are taking their time).
The last entry is from 19th april, where a lawyer firm (Tunstall, Chirstopher Stephen from London; don't know who they represent off hand) ask the Patent office when they are going to give their ruling:
"Further to your telephone conversation with my assistent on 15th April 2004, I should be grateful if you would notify me, at your earliest convenience, of the date when the written decision of the Technical Board of Appeal will be issued".
No reply registered from the EPO board yet apparently.
Cheers
Cor
Hey Skeptic
strangle is - do you have one in place now?
Took most of the puts off when the stock taked earlier on (for profit); I would be best served now by a fast rise of the stock;)
Cheers
Cor
Threejack on Nic's pdf about the claims language
You have this at the top list. The link does not work any more because the site (markt21.net) which was mine was taken off the net by me (it was to sell my aparment, which did not work, so I decided to save on the hosting costs)
The link which works now is:
http://www.chipstocks.net/rmbs/Claims-comparison-frm-NicdaGreek-04jan14.pdf
(I put it in the Rambus directory of my regular chipstocks site)
Cheers
Cor
Thanks Paul, that is a relief:)
I searched for the names btw and did not find much.
PS did you know that it is possible to convert that document such that you can copy/paste? Just did it:)
Cheers
Cor
Hey Paul,
I am missing Infineon from this whole story. What's up? ;)
Cheers
Cor
my motives are pure"
as far as your motives - if I remember right, you said you bought some puts.
And calls, it is called a strangle.
Apart from that, I don't have the hubris to think that I can move the stock price, so I would not try regardless of my position.
(Danforth's motives may not be as pure as mine in this regard;)
You stated there was nothing new in the complaint which may be true, but it is very telling of the tactics and attitudes of the defendants.
Reading one side of the case, minus the evidence, tends to slant one's view. I would not be surprised for Infineon to come up with a valid defense and where does that leave the little Rambus shareholder?
Cheers
Cor
Hey Skeptic,
If Elixe and Cor really want to be objective, they should give Rambus' new complaint a read.
I may be a legal nitwit, but I did read the whole new complaint yesterday. Nothing new there btw. The evidence will have to come later.
I can't speak for Elixe, who may not be interested to read the whole thing. I only know Elixe from the boards, but I do know he has studied and shown repeatedly on TMF how rdram failed. Mind you, it is still available now and does not sell. (you cannot maintain that Samsung is throttling the production of rdram, can you?)
And I doubt Rambus would file this if Samsung and IFX were in fact making adequate supplies.
I read somewhere, that if they had not files the Stat.of lim. might have kicked in. That seems a reasonable explanation to me.
I posted just now on TMF the following:
http://boards.fool.com/Message.asp?mid=20732969
"Whether it is a stimulus(to settle) or not, depends imo very much on the degree of guilt of the accused. For example the(a) main accusation is too low production of rdram. (although that would only be illegal if done in concert) Just imagine that Infineon has records showing that they have had inventory all the time and it simply did not sell (and we have been over this years ago at nauseam, Intel was to blame too etc etc), IFX would wnat the case to go to trial so they can show innocence. The mere fact of the filing puts a shadow over the reputation of the Cos and if I were innocent or even partly innocent, I would want to get that cleared, regardless of the cost."
And finally, before that FUD thing sticks up it's little ugly head again, my motives are pure. I am into this in an investigative reporter mode.(maybe I will write the book in five years, it would be a bestseller;) I hold no shares at the moment in any of the companies involved. Rambus has some points, but the "amigos" also have points. Trying to see both.
Don'fall in love with a stock, try to read without filters, or at least put them away every now and then.
Cheers
Cor
Well Threejack, at the time I also preferred PC133.
I still am running this Duron 700 computer with PC133 and it runs very well , does everything I need flawlessly (which involves simultaneously having 6 internet windown open, IBM websphere running, Excel and write (don't like word) and Adobe Acrobat (not just the reader, the whole thing).
Unless I get a faster line than my present 750 Kbps adsl then I probably don't need more.
I will be buying an AMD64 laptop soon, so I can work under my new Palm tree :) I want a 64 bit because the software will come within my 3-5 year period of use of the computer. I would be perfectly happy with PC133 on that thing but it happens to be more expensive than DDR now , LOL.
One thing which could really turn against Rambus in thsi new trial is the stock records of Samsung and Infineon of rdram. If those show there was plenty of chips going, then how do you prove there were not enough?
I am very sceptical about this trial, but will leave it here, because my legal predictions turn to sh!t soemtimes;)
Cheers
Cor
On the IFX, MU legal advice.
Threejack,
If the evidence of collusive behavior is as compelling as Mr. Danforth suggested, then at least Infineon and Micron executives are getting lousy legal advice if their public reactions to the civil suit represent their positions on the matter.
if is the big word here isn't it? The statement from IFX is very much compatible with what has been in their 10K and AR the past two years, so one has to assume the advice has been made a long time ago. I am not so deeply into MU 10Ks to say whether that is also the case so leave that to somebody else to investigate;)
(that last smiley means that I know most people are too lazy to do what I do:)
Cheers
Cor
Calbiker about biking:)
Ha. That pretty much guaranteed my defeat.
You really jinxed yourself there, only yourself to blame, LOL.
But I am goign to refrain from predictions on the legal front. Even Nic gets it wrong at times.
Cheers
Cor
PS how about posting on my forums what you like about ADI?
http://chipstocks.net/semi-subjects/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=34
Skeptic, on Desai.
Cor - How long before Desai raises his estimate on Rambus?
I thought I read somewhere that he had raised by $ 2.5 to $ 3, but I am not sure. Have been packing more boxes (another 8 with books, pfft) and posting the latest on my site.
I would think generally that Desai will not change too quickly. Analysts don't like to be seen to be flipflopping around.
The market's response so far is also rather tepid, I would say, for Rambus standards (!). As I listened to the CC I also watched the tape and Danforth at a certain moment was worth 10 cents, but then fizzled to 4 cents. Later after the call some further improvement.
For a blockbuster announcement , the standard is 20-25% so in this case some $ 5.
Cheers
Cor
Hey Threejack,
You are still a low-ball : )
I have pushed the "keep" button on this and will revisit this in 12 months, we'll see where the price is then. My estimate now is between $ 30 and $ 35. (but I may be way optimistic if the litigation just drags on w/o visible success)
ey, where is Nic? Any comment from him anywhere yet?
I guess he is travelling. Some people still have to work for a living you know;) Maybe advising some "does", ROFL.
Mr. Danforth openly acknowledged again the fiduciary responsibility to Rambus shareholders. Smart move, mitigates liability and provides cover story to customers, both friend and foe..
Smart and totally insincere. Look at the actions, not the words.
Did Mr. Eualu cut off the Q&A or was it my imagination??
I think they ran out of questions.
Still looking for my $ 17 (re)entry point.
Cheers
Cor
You seem the perpetual bear when it comes to Rambus, Cor.
Hey Skeptic
I think you have me confused with Desai. My price target for Rmbs as per last week was $ 16 higher than his ;)
Cheers
Cor
Hi Threejack
Quite a joke, half an hour before this news broke I posted at the Fool, that I thought this suit would never come about;) (teaches something about not treading outside one's field of competence:)
I wonder if Nic is around and could let us know how long this could take? Two years? (seems the minimum) or up to four years?
Otoh it may force (alleged) infringers hands, but otoh the chance of ever doing reasonable business with these companies is flushed down the toilet, including PCI-Express work.(imo)
If there is a victory sometime, it may well be a Pyrrhic victory ("One more such victory and we are lost.")
Cheers
Cor
Searching for the articles, I am looking for two, found one, let me put it here before I lose it again;)
http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG20020311S0057
Valuing serdes IP
By Jeremey Donovan
EE Times
oktober 21, 2002 (11:59 AM EDT)
...Like any intellectual property make vs. buy decision, the decision to make or develop serdes IP rests on factors including IP licensing costs, IP development costs, strategic value of owning IP and integration costs of IP cores. Many of those factors rest on the topic of this column: valuing serdes IP.
A simple way to value serdes IP is to use merchant silicon pricing as a proxy. Serdes IP exists in its purest form in off-the-shelf backplane interconnect ICs. Though there are multitudes of backplane interconnect devices on the market, let's use the Mindspeed M27211, which is an 8x3.125-Gbits/s with 8B/10B encoding that sells for $119. This implies a price of $4.76 per 1-Gbit/s. Taking 50 percent out for gross margin and another 25 percent out for manufacturing, the actual value of serdes IP probably hovers around $1.25 per 1 Gbit/s.
So then, what is the total value of serdes intellectual property in the communications semiconductor world? To help answer that, I turn to Gartner Dataquest's port-based system and semiconductor model.
Aggregating every kind of port-from T1/E1 to Gigabit Ethernet to OC-192-there was approximately 16.2 petabits of line interface bandwidth shipped in 2001. Sounds shocking, but consider that there was 22.4 petabits shipped in 2000. This 16.2 petabits of line interface traffic was probably supported by another 24.3 petabits of backplane bandwidth.
Here, I assume 50 percent extra backplane capacity to support redundancy and overspeed. A total of 40.5 petabits at $1.25 per 1 Gbit/s yields a total serdes intellectual property market value of $50 million. This represents a reasonable upper bound to the third-party serdes IP licensing market on an annual basis.
And remember, this serdes (of which RaSer is one flavor) has been here for years and Rambus did not have a single dollar of royalty income on it so far.
(as per the various CCs)
So let's use that as a yardstick for probably future PCI-Express income.
I know I sometimes sound like a wet rag, but I am a critic of unsubstantiated facts in general, not just rambus.
Cheers
Cor
Btw ran into a link to a post of mine two years ago about serdes, which is still pretty valid:
http://boards.fool.com/Message.asp?mid=17055064
Threejack, on the total IP market.
Mr. Tate said Gartner estimates the Total IP market will be $2B by 2007, and Rambus believes I/O will large part of it.
I am surprised about that quote. This refers to an older article. I will look it up and post it. I wonder if Gartner has not updated this.
If that $2B only were the total semiconductor IP market in 2007, how much would be left for Rambus of that?
(some off the cuff numbers)
- subtract $ 400 M for ARMHY
- subtract $ 50 M for MIPS
- subtract $ 25 M for MOSY
- subtract $ 200 M for IBM
I could make a looong list here:)
Somehow this does not gel with the "grain of salt" slide.
Cheers
Cor
So what happened with the slide is apparently, that they took off the 75% line only. (that was going a bit too far, LOL)
Well I have posted the exact "grain of salt" remark and I am sure this was said to avoid shareholder grief/lawsuits whatever. In my personal opinion a large bag of salt would be more suitable.
It is being presented as if there were no (fast) chip to chip interfaces before. A large percentage of chips interface to other chips. (excepted only those chips which act as a single chip solution for something, for example a thermostat ASIC).
Another "disclaimery" thing in the new slide and not the old slide is: "for Outsourced/licensed Chip interfaces".
And there you have it. Many chip interfaces belong to the maker, say for example Intel's Northbridge connects to the Intel FSB, memory, AGP and Intel's Southbridge.
Then there are the "free" interfaces. like Hypertransport.
There is also a tendency to more integration, SoC, which makes the number of chips which have to talk to each other smaller. Look on your PC mobo, how many chips now compared with five years ago? (don't forget in the extra cards there used to be for things like ethernet i/f)
So what is the TAM for chips with "Outsourced/licensed Chip interfaces"? $ 5 B, $ 10 B?
Cheers
Cor
It was the second slide or a slight variation thereof, Elixe, I forgot to right click and save it.
Here is the part of the CC:
Q. On the chart with royalties, you have 25% and 50%. did that include all potential royalties or did that just include IO royalties?
Tate literally said:
A. The chart that you are referring to ... that really should be taken with a grain of salt.That is, if every chip has a chip interface and IF some percentage of the market was outsourced and IF the royalty for that outsourcing was some fixed percentage, then you could find the line on the curve. Eh, we don't know what the size of the market is and there are other royalties that people pay on chips, for example ARM its royalties royalties , as I understand their licenses. So that is just to address chip interface.
Note: he is referring to ARMHY;ARMHY supplies cpu cores to their licensees who incorporate them in ASICs, ASSPs. The average royalty ARMHY now gets for a core is $ 0.09 (9 cents) per core. A major percentage (around 70%) of mobile phones now has a (or two) ARM cores. I don't know what the asp is for a chip with an ARM core, estimate it at $ 20-40.
Approximately a billion cores are shipped annually (and growing). Revenue is approx. $ 250 M.
Cheers
Cor
A "grain of salt" it is finally official from the horse's mouth.
Did you hear that Threejack? (about the infamous slide)
I have taped the text but no doubt others are writing more complete transcripts.
I am wondering about this CC. Is this before or during the GM? There must more questions than those few from those tame persons in there;(
Cheers
Cor
Hey Threejack, good list.
Do you know if anyone from the boards (a shareholder) is going to the event?
Cheers
Cor
Elixe how about this application for ODT?
http://tinyurl.com/2oozh
(Rambus)
Method and apparatus for signaling between devices of a memory system
for example:
[0060] Use of termination structures on a bus, including integrated termination structures, and active control circuitry to allow adjustment to different characteristic bus impedances and power-state control, including a calibration process to optimize the termination value,
Anyway gotto stop that patent application surfing, going absolutely nuts. Ran into some interesting patents by IBM and Samsung for alternative CAS latency solutions too;)
And: curiosity killed the cat:)
Cheers
Cor
Paul, haha.
It would not make any difference if they were patented what Cordob was doing. (btw I am not looking around for prior art, the defenders can do that;)
Cheers
Cor
Bet they patented it.
Haha, but who patented it? ;)
Infineon, Micron, IBM ? ...
Cheers
Cor
Hi Elixe, on DDR2 IP,
The only area I see for possible claims is ODT, (On Die Termination), and perhaps the extensions to Latency, Posted CAS.
Hi Elixe. Are you aware of a ODT patent from Rambus? I have not searched the database for some time, so I don't know.
I very much doubt the extensions to latency are protected, other than what is already in sdram, unless Rambus has a specific patent (in the pipeline?) describing such extensions.
Cheers
Cor
Hi Paul and Threejack,(on DDR2, last 3 posts)
If there are additional inventions in DDR2, which Rambus has patented, why has nobody including Rambus identified them?
I am also in general a bit dubious about counting inventions and multiplying them with a number to arrive at reasonable percentage royalty rates. (btw: I am a proponent of fixed $ amount royalty rates and the following reasoning will show why) Can you imagine how many inventions there are in a DDR sdram in total? (including the core) I would estimate the number to be over 500. Let's take that number for a moment, are we going to say one invention is worth one fife-hundredth of the part of the selling price which is reserved for royalties?
So from an economic point of view: at the very best of times dram is sold at twice fully loaded cost so has a (fully loaded) gross margin of 50%. Say that at those "good times" the manufacturer is allowed to have 25% left (which means that at the bad times it will probably be negative), so that he can invest in new production equipment, R&D for the next stage, etc. That leaves 25% of selling price for those 500 inventions. Taking all inventions as being equal in value(which of course they are not), that would give you 25% / 500 = 0.05% per invention.
How many inventions did you say Rambus has in DDR2? ;)
Ah, you could say, but the Rambus inventions are "enabling" inventions so they are worth more and Rambus, which has no production facilities, must live off the royalties only.
OK, on to this question, how many "enabling" patents do you think Infineon and Micron have for example? I believe if one of them stopped making chips altogether and went for an IP-only model a la Rambus, they could stop the dram industry, i.e. injunct them out of existence. (plus much of the dram core IP is owned by Texas Instruments, which does not make dram any more, but as long as they need some IP from say Samsung, they need to make cross license agreements)
As I recall, the last time I read a technical description of DDR2, programmable latency use is expanded in that it is used for both the read and the write operations.
Oh, and Paul on this one, it would depend if Rambus has specifically described such an arrangement with latency for writes in a patent claim, term for term. Nick help here please.(I know the concept of what I am saying but not the law in sufficient detail)
This DDR2 license issue needs to be addressed and clarified by management at the Annual Meeting.
Do existing DDR Licensees need to sign a new agreement for Rambus IP in DDR2?
Yes I agree, they have to come out this unclear waffling mode and tell everybody, especially their owners-the shareholders- what is going on.
Cheers
Cor
PS. in the sale of the wireline division of IFX this week, IFX passed on a patent portfolio of 450 patents for the fiber optic IP.
Threejack,
It is my opinion that DDR2 is DDR plus something (which is probably not rambus), so a DDR license covers DDR2. So they have to pay for it regardless. In the case of Samsung (the most important licensee) I am not sure what that means, because they seem to be paying a fixed amount.
I believe Erich Desai is incorrect on this issue.
Cheers
Cor
http://boards.fool.com/Message.asp?mid=20698648
http://boards.fool.com/Message.asp?mid=20698721
Haha, calbiker. I don't think the engineers wrote it;) It is signed by Bob Eulau anyway. Maybe nit a bad idea to let the engineers do the CC in future:)
Cheers
Cor
For a 10Q, surprisingly up to date:
Infineon: On April 27, 2004, the trial date was postponed to a new date in the fall of 2004.
The 10Q is dated todat 29th April, two days later. Normally one cannot get it through typing pool that quickly;)
And the 10Q itself is very prompt, an example which a lot of companies could follow.
Cheers
Cor
Hey Elixe, that most optimistic calculation is also irresponsible drivel in my honest opinion;)
But you knew that.
I have to ask you, apart from playing with numbers, looking personally honestly at the numbers, what do you think the most likely royalty outcome will be for 2007? (jeez I hate it when the horizon keeps shifting, 2005 would be nicer)
And we are not going to keep you to that number or throw it at you later.
Cheers
Cor
Threejack re translation,
I have posted a slightly improved translation on my site after I saw some people at yahoo mauling (parts of) the text.
I am unable to post there now for some reason, maybe you can (would appreciate it)
I added an excerpt from the Handelsblatt teaser; the article is for sale and I felt we did not need that. They have measures on their site to prevent copy/past but we have our ways:)
http://chipstocks.net/semi-subjects/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=19
Cheers
Cor
I was waiting for a reaction from Desai. Would be nice to read the reasoning.
Always a hard call to make for an analyst, have the stock at BUY at $ 37 and at HOLD at $ 21 ...
And I do believe Erich Desai is very precise and reliable in making such a call.
Cheers
Cor
You're welcome, Threejack.
curious Micron was not part of the EU complaint
I don't think all that curious. Infineon and Hynix have been doing the EPO patent thing together using the same patent law firm afaik.
Cheers
Cor
Can you translate?
Sure Threejack, here you go:(a bit quick and dirty on the grammar but clean on the content)
"According to a press report memory manufacturer Infineon is trying to come to a settlement out of court with competitor (!) Rambus in the case of their patent battle. "The two companies are in direct contact", quoted the Handelsblatt (wednesday's issue) industry sources in Munich and Brussels. A Infineon spokesman did not want to comment on the chances for an amicable settlement.
Both companies have been arguing for years about license rights for dram chips. Rambus claims IP rights on the technology and asks for royalties in the billions of dollars. The US court (Richmond) has moved the session originally planned for 10th June to the fall due to several to be cleared issues. As they said on tuesday, an exact date for the session will be issued by the end of May.
At the same time a complaint against Rambus was made at the EU commission in Brussels, jointly with the South Korean manufacturer Hynix. This has been confirmed by a spokeswoman for EU competition commission member Mario Monti, according to the newspaper. Both companies accuse Rambus of misusing their position as exclusive supplier (!) of a leading technology standard in order to get higher royalties from other semiconductor manufacturers.
Allegedly, Rambus would have misled US standards setting organisations, in order to achieve worldwide patent protection for their technology. The FTC would also investigate into this. Brussel would wait for the result of this action, before taking a decision on whether a procedure against Rambus would be started about the misuse of their monopolistic position. Infineon and other semiconductor manufacturers are also (separately) threatened with price fixing charges."
(bracketed comments mine-cordob)
Cheers
Cor
I posted the "news" about FTC on my site with some trepidation, as I try to avoid legal stuff, which is really impossible in the case of Rambus.
I try to be as careful as possible in such cases. Feel free to comment.
http://chipstocks.net/semi-subjects/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=140#140
I have appended a personal comment about the royalty question, copied here:
Comment:
The $ 3 billion number has been bandied about in the press and it is not totally clear where that originated, although some slides in a Rambus presentation have set up such expectations.
Also analyst and newsletter seller Fred Hager has output spreadsheets with very high numbers for future royalties, even suggesting a stock price for Rambus of $ 1000 as a possible outcome in 2007. I personally (cordob) believe these estimates are irresponsible.
When the stock price zoomed to $ 38 earlier this year, a win on all fronts was mostly built into the stock price. As the annual profits are now in the region of $ 0.20 to $ 0.25, a reasonable stock price based on that alone would be below $ 10.
I have done the sums for the Infineon case and come to a much lower royalty number, including back royalties well under $ 100 Million. (not counting potential triple damages) Maybe I will put out a more detailed report on the total royalty picture as I see it later.
Cheers
Cor
Hi Elixe
What I find a bit incongruous is that on the one hand they put out these polyinterpretable presentations with the (probable) objective to stir investors into driving up the stock price and on teh other hand they (now) put out messages as if the amount to be had is much smaller.
The two never meet apparently.
Is it really affirmative that Danforth said that in the fisrt place, I wonder? (I mean it would be the kind of statement one would want to have a board meeting about first)
Cheers
Cor