Rambus Incorporated (NASDAQ: RMBS), founded in 1990, is a provider of high-speed interface technology, most notably their Rambus Dynamic RAM memory technology, which was intended to replace SDRAM and challenge DDR SDRAM as the standard memory used in computers. A public company usually refers to a company that is permitted to offer its registered securities ( Stock, bonds, etc The NASDAQ (acronym of National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations) is an American Stock exchange. Year 1990 ( MCMXC) was a Common year starting on Monday (link displays the 1990 Gregorian calendar) Los Altos (lɑːˈsæltoʊs is a city at the southern end of the San Francisco Peninsula, in the San Francisco Bay Area. The United States of America —commonly referred to as the A chief executive officer ( CEO) or chief executive is typically the highest-ranking corporate officer ( executive) or administrator A website (alternatively web site or Web site, a back-construction from the Proper noun World Wide Web) is a collection of Web pages The NASDAQ (acronym of National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations) is an American Stock exchange. Year 1990 ( MCMXC) was a Common year starting on Monday (link displays the 1990 Gregorian calendar) Direct Rambus DRAM or DRDRAM (sometimes just called Rambus DRAM or RDRAM) is a type of synchronous dynamic RAM, designed by the Rambus SDRAM refers to synchronous Dynamic random access memory, a term that is used to describe dynamic random access memory that has a synchronous interface DDR SDRAM ( double data rate synchronous dynamic random access memory) is a class of memory Integrated circuit used in Computers It achieves nearly twice In Psychology, memory is an organism's ability to store retain and subsequently retrieve information A computer is a Machine that manipulates data according to a list of instructions.

History

Rambus, a California company, was incorporated in 1990 and re-incorporated in Delaware in 1997. The company was listed on Nasdaq in 1997 under the code RMBS. The NASDAQ (acronym of National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations) is an American Stock exchange. As of February 2006, Rambus derived the majority of its annual revenue by licensing patents for chip interfaces to its customers .

Companies such as AMD, Elpida, Infineon, Intel, Matsushita, NECEL, Renesas, Sony, and Toshiba have taken licenses to Rambus patents for use in their own products. ( is a corporation that develops designs manufactures and sells dynamic random-access memory (DRAM products Infineon Technologies AG () was founded in April 1999 when the Semiconductor operations of parent company Siemens AG, were spun off to form a separate is a Japanese multinational IT company headquartered in Minato Tokyo, Japan. is a Japanese semiconductor manufacturer They are based in Tokyo and have manufacturing design and sales operations in around 20 countries with about 26200 employees worldwide is a multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato Tokyo, Japan, and one of the world's largest Media conglomerates with ( is a multinational conglomerate manufacturing company headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. ^[1]

Rambus' share price has ranged between a high of nearly $150 in 2000 to a low of approxmiately $3 in 2002 with a 4:1 split on June 15, 2000. Events 763 BC - Assyrians record a Solar eclipse that will be used to fix the Chronology of Mesopotamian history 2000 ( MM) was a Leap year that started on Saturday of the Common Era, in accordance with the Gregorian calendar.

Licensing

As a company with no chip production facilities of its own, Rambus conducts business by filing patents and then licensing technologies. A fabless semiconductor company specializes in the design and sale of Hardware devices implemented on Semiconductor For example, Nintendo licensed Rambus memory for the Nintendo 64, as did Sony for use in the PlayStation 2. is a Multinational corporation headquartered in Kyoto Japan founded on The, often abbreviated as N64, is Nintendo 's third home Video game console for the international market is a multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato Tokyo, Japan, and one of the world's largest Media conglomerates with However, the most famous agreement was with Intel Corporation in 1996, under which Intel became obligated to use RDRAM as the primary memory technology for all Intel platforms until 2002.

In exchange for this, Intel was given a cut of Rambus's royalties, which Intel management anticipated would be a lucrative source of high margin revenue. In reality, the RDRAM standard did not prove to be popular, and motherboard manufacturers simply bought chipsets that supported SDRAM technology from VIA Technologies rather than more expensive RDRAM chipsets from Intel. A motherboard is the central or primary Printed circuit board (PCB making up a complex electronic system such as a modern Computer or Laptop VIA Technologies ( is a Taiwanese manufacturer of Integrated circuits mainly Motherboard Chipsets CPUs, and memory, and Ironically in this manner, one of the most enduring achievements of Rambus was to facilitate the rise of VIA Technologies by creating a lucrative market vacuum.

In addition to Intel, SiS also licensed RDRAM, which was used in the SiS R658 chip set. Silicon Integrated Systems (SiS Traditional Chinese: 矽統科技) is a company that manufactures among other things motherboard chipsets Direct Rambus DRAM or DRDRAM (sometimes just called Rambus DRAM or RDRAM) is a type of synchronous dynamic RAM, designed by the Rambus However, it was never popular. The proposed SiS R659, which supports 4 channels of 16-bit 1200 MHz RDRAM, was only available as prototype (TYPE).

As the market for RDRAM was overtaken, Rambus developed new memory interfaces for high speed activity and has continued to license these. Rambus has targeted the graphics card industry and licensed its technology to Sony for incorporation into Cell Technology as implemented with the PlayStation 3. Cell is a Microprocessor architecture jointly developed by Sony Computer Entertainment, Toshiba, and IBM, an ^[2] It also developed PCI-E interfaces, and in 2006 it licensed its XDR DRAM memory controller to Toshiba. Not to be confused with PCI-X, a different bus architecture Peripheral Component Interconnect Express, officially abbreviated as PCI-E XDR DRAM or extreme data rate Dynamic random access memory is a high-performance RAM interface and successor to the Rambus RDRAM it ( is a multinational conglomerate manufacturing company headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. ^[3]

Technology

The first PC motherboards with support for RDRAM debuted in 1999. They supported PC800 RDRAM, which operated at 400 MHz but presented data on both rise and fall of clock cycle resulting in effectively 800 MHz, and delivered 1600 MB/s of bandwidth over a 16-bit bus using a 184-pin RIMM form factor. This was significantly faster than the previous standard, PC133 SDRAM, which operated at 133 MHz and delivered 1066 MB/s of bandwidth over a 64-bit bus using a 168-pin DIMM form factor. A DIMM, or dual in-line memory module, comprises a series of Dynamic random access memory Integrated circuits These modules are mounted on a Printed

Some downsides of RDRAM technology, however, included significantly increased latency, heat output, manufacturing complexity, and cost. SDRAM latency refers to the delays incurred when a Computer tries to access Data in SDRAM. PC800 RDRAM operated with a latency of 45 ns, compared to only 7. 5 ns for PC133 SDRAM. RDRAM memory chips also put out significantly more heat than SDRAM chips, necessitating heatsinks on all RIMM devices. A heat sink (or heatsink) is an environment or object that absorbs and dissipates heat from another object using Thermal contact (either direct or radiant RDRAM also includes a memory controller on each memory chip, significantly increasing manufacturing complexity compared to SDRAM, which used a single memory controller located on the northbridge chipset. The northbridge, also known as the memory controller hub ( MCH) in Intel systems (AMD VIA SiS and others usually use 'northbridge' is traditionally one RDRAM was also two to three times the price of PC133 SDRAM due to a combination of high manufacturing costs and high license fees. DDR SDRAM, introduced in 2000, operated at an effective clockspeed of 266 MHz and delivered 2100 MB/s over a 64-bit bus using a 184-pin DIMM form factor.

With the introduction of the i840 chipset, Intel added support for dual-channel PC800 RDRAM, doubling bandwidth to 3200 MB/s by increasing the bus width to 32-bit. This is a list of Computer Motherboard Chipsets made by Intel. This was followed in 2002 by the i850E chipset, which introduced PC1066 RDRAM, increasing total dual-channel bandwidth to 4200 MB/s. This is a list of Computer Motherboard Chipsets made by Intel. Also in 2002, Intel released the E7205 Granite Bay chipset, which introduced dual-channel DDR support for a total bandwidth of 4200 MB/s, but at a much lower latency than competing RDRAM. In 2003, Intel released the i875P chipset, and along with it dual-channel DDR400. This is a list of Computer Motherboard Chipsets made by Intel. With a total bandwidth of 6400 MB/s, it marked the end of RDRAM as a technology with competitive performance.

Rambus survived the obsolesence of RDRAM and moved to support DDR and DDR2 in the area of video card technology and in particular, PCI-E. Not to be confused with PCI-X, a different bus architecture Peripheral Component Interconnect Express, officially abbreviated as PCI-E Rambus also developed and licensed its XDR RAM technology. XDR DRAM or extreme data rate Dynamic random access memory is a high-performance RAM interface and successor to the Rambus RDRAM it

Lawsuits

In the early 1990s, Rambus was invited to join the JEDEC. JEDEC Solid State Technology Association, formerly known as J oint E lectron D evice E ngineering C ouncil ( JEDEC) or Joint Rambus had been trying to interest memory manufacturers in licensing their proprietary memory interface, and numerous companies had signed non-disclosure agreements to view Rambus' technical data. A non-disclosure agreement (NDA also known as a confidentiality agreement, confidential disclosure agreement (CDA proprietary information agreement During the later Infineon v. Rambus trial, Infineon memos from a meeting with representatives of other manufacturers surfaced, including the line “[O]ne day all computers will be built this way, but hopefully without the royalties going to Rambus”, and continuing with a strategy discussion for reducing or eliminating royalties to be paid to Rambus. Infineon Technologies AG () was founded in April 1999 when the Semiconductor operations of parent company Siemens AG, were spun off to form a separate As Rambus continued its participation in JEDEC, it became apparent that they were not prepared to agree to JEDEC’s patent policy requiring owners of patents included in a standard to agree to license that technology under terms that are ‘reasonable and non-discriminatory’,^[4] and Rambus withdrew from the organization in 1995. Memos from Rambus at that time showed they were tailoring new patent applications to cover features of SDRAM being discussed, which were public knowledge (JEDEC meetings were not considered secret) and perfectly legal for patent owners who have patented underlying innovations, but were seen as evidence of bad faith by the jury in the first Infineon v. Rambus trial. The Federal Court of Appeals rejected this theory of bad faith in its decision overturning the fraud conviction Infineon achieved in the first trial (see below). The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit is a United States court of appeals and was created by Congress with passage of the Federal Courts Improvement

In 2000, Rambus began filing lawsuits against the largest memory manufacturers, claiming that they owned SDRAM and DDR technology. Seven manufacturers, including Samsung, quickly settled with Rambus and agreed to pay royalties on SDRAM and DDR memory. The Samsung Group ( Korean:, Samsung Guerup) is South Korea 's largest company or Chaebol and the world's largest conglomerate When Rambus sued Infineon Technologies, however, Micron and Hynix joined forces with Infineon to fight the lawsuit, countersuing with claims of fraud. Infineon Technologies AG () was founded in April 1999 when the Semiconductor operations of parent company Siemens AG, were spun off to form a separate Micron Technology ("Micron" is a multinational company based in Boise, Idaho, USA best known for producing many forms of Semiconductor Hynix Semiconductor Inc of South Korea is a memory Semiconductor supplier of Dynamic random access memory ('DRAM' chips and Flash memory This trio of memory manufacturers became known as “The Three Amigos”. In May 2001, Rambus was found guilty of fraud for having claimed that they owned SDRAM and DDR technology, and all infringement claims against memory manufacturers were dismissed. In January 2003, the Federal Court of Appeals overturned the fraud verdict of the jury trial in Virginia under Judge Payne, issued a new claims construction, and remanded the case back to Virginia for re-trial on infringement. The Commonwealth of Virginia ( is an American state In October 2003, the US Supreme Court refused to hear the case. The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest judicial body in the United States and leads the federal judiciary. Thus, the case returned to Virginia per the Federal Court of Appeals ruling.

In January 2005, Rambus filed four more lawsuits against memory chip makers Hynix Semiconductor, Nanya Technology, Inotera Memories and Infineon Technology claiming that DDR 2, GDDR 2 and GDDR 3 chips contain Rambus technology. In March 2005, Rambus had its claim for patent infringements against Infineon dismissed. Rambus was accused of shredding key documents prior to court hearings, the judge agreed and dismissed Rambus' case against Infineon. This sent Rambus to the settlement table with Infineon. Infineon has agreed to pay Rambus quarterly license fees of $5. 9m and in return, both companies ceased all litigation against each other. The agreement runs from November 2005 to November 2007. After this date, if Rambus has enough other agreements in place, Infineon may make extra payments up to $100m. Currently, cases involving Micron and Hynix remain in court. In June 2005, Rambus also sued one of its strongest proponents, Samsung, the world's largest memory manufacturer, and terminated Samsung's license. Samsung had promoted Rambus's RDRAM and currently remains a licensee of Rambus's XDR memory. XDR DRAM or extreme data rate Dynamic random access memory is a high-performance RAM interface and successor to the Rambus RDRAM it

In May 2002, the United Stated Federal Trade Commission (FTC) filed charges against Rambus for antitrust violations. The Federal Trade Commission ( FTC) is an independent agency of the United States government, established in 1914 by the Federal Trade Commission Act Specifically, the FTC complaint asserted that through the use of patent continuations and divisionals, Rambus pursued a strategy of expanding the scope of its patent claims to encompass the emerging SDRAM standard. The FTC's antitrust allegations against Rambus went to trial in the summer of 2003 after the organization formally accused Rambus of anti-competitive behavior the previous June, itself the result of an investigation launched in May 2002 at the behest of the memory manufacturers. The FTC's chief administrative-law judge, Stephen J. McGuire, dismissed the antitrust claims against Rambus in 2004, saying that the memory industry had no reasonable alternatives to Rambus technology and was aware of the potential scope of Rambus patent rights, according to the company. Soon after, FTC investigators filed a brief to appeal against that ruling.

In 2004, Infineon plead guilty to price-fixing in an attempt to bury Rambus and force RDRAM out of the market. They later paid a fine of $160 million. Hynix and Samsung followed suit in 2005 and paid $185 million and $300 million respectively. Elpida is the most recent company to plead guilty and paid a fine of $85 million, the lowest of all memory manufacturers. It is widely believed that the evidence collected during the FTC's investigation of Rambus led directly to the guilty pleas.

On August 2, 2006, the Federal Trade Commission overturned McGuire's ruling, stating that Rambus illegally monopolized the memory industry under section 2 of the Sherman Antitrust Act, and also practiced deception that violated section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act. Events 338 BC - A Macedonian army led by Philip II defeated the combined forces of Athens and Thebes in the Year 2006 ( MMVI) was a Common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. The Sherman Antitrust Act ( Sherman Act, July 2, 1890, ch 647,) was the first United States Federal statute to limit Cartels and The Federal Trade Commission Act of 1914 (15 USC §§ 41-58 as amended) established the Federal Trade Commission (FTC a Bipartisan body of five members ^[5]

February 5, 2007, U. Events 1576 - Henry of Navarre converts to Roman Catholicism in order to ensure his right to the throne of France. Year 2007 ( MMVII) was a Common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. S. Federal Trade Commission issued a ruling that limits maximum royalties that Rambus may demand from manufacturers of dynamic random access memory (DRAM), which was set to 0. 5% for DDR SDRAM for 3 years from the date the Commission’s Order is issued and then going to 0; while SDRAM's maximum royalty was set to 0. 25%. The Commission claimed that halving the DDR SDRAM rate for SDRAM would reflect the fact that while DDR SDRAM utilizes four of the relevant Rambus technologies, SDRAM uses only two. In addition to collecting fees for DRAM chips, Rambus will also be able to receive 0. 5% and 1. 0% royalties for SDRAM and DDR SDRAM memory controllers or other non-memory chip components respectively. However, the ruling did not prohibit Rambus from collecting royalties on products based on (G)DDR2 SDRAM and other JEDEC post-DDR memory standards. Rambus has appealed the FTC Opinion/Remedy and awaits a court date for the appeal. ^[6]

On March 26, 2008, the jury of the U. Events 1026 - Pope John XIX crowns Conrad II as Holy Roman Emperor. 2008 ( MMVIII) is the current year in accordance with the Gregorian calendar, a Leap year that started on Tuesday of the Common S. District Court in San Jose determined that Rambus acted properly while a member of the standard-setting organization JEDEC during its participating in the early 1990s, finding that the memory manufacturers did not meet their burden of proving antitrust and fraud claims. ^[7]

On April 22, 2008, the DC Court of Appeals overturned the FTC reversal of McGuire's 2004 ruling, saying that the FTC had not established that Rambus had harmed the competition. Events 1500 - Portuguese Navigator Pedro Álvares Cabral becomes the first European to sight Brazil. 2008 ( MMVIII) is the current year in accordance with the Gregorian calendar, a Leap year that started on Tuesday of the Common The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, known informally as the D ^[8]

On April 29, 2008, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued a ruling vacating the order of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, saying the case with Samsung should be dismissed, saying Judge Robert E. Events 1429 - Joan of Arc arrives to relieve the Siege of Orleans. 2008 ( MMVIII) is the current year in accordance with the Gregorian calendar, a Leap year that started on Tuesday of the Common The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit is a United States court of appeals and was created by Congress with passage of the Federal Courts Improvement The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia is one of two United States district courts serving the Commonwealth of Virginia. Payne's findings critical of Rambus, were on a case that had already been settled, and thus had no legal standing. ^[9]

Management team

• Harold Hughes, Chief Executive Officer
• Dr. Mark Horowitz, Chief Scientist
• Satish Rishi, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
• Tom Lavelle, Senior Vice President and General Counsel
• Sharon Holt, Senior Vice President, Worldwide Sales, Licensing and Marketing
• Kevin Donnelly, Senior Vice President Engineering
• Laura Stark, Senior Vice President Platform Solutions Group
• Martin Scott, Senior Vice President Engineering
• Michael Schroeder, Vice President Human Resources
• Tim Messegee, Vice President Corporate Marketing
• Eric Ries, Vice President and Managing Director, Rambus Japan

See also

• Intel Corporation

References

External links

• Rambus Inc.