Infineon

In fact, Infineon has a lot to share on the matter. The company at least retains the technological parity, having announced the first samples of 512Mbit DDR II chips supporting 533MHz and 667MHz frequencies. This is definitely not the “mass-produced” DDR II modules from Samsung, but still we are sure by the time there is mass demand, Infineon with partners will have got ready to meet it.

Right now, the company is seriously considering the move to a new location. Switzerland, Singapore and the USA are possible places for Infineon to land. The company has representative offices in the latter two countries, while they consider Switzerland in case Infineon decides to remain European, but save on taxes, which seem to be really high in Germany today.

Rambus

Unfortunately, legal costs are legal costs in any country and the legal battle between Infineon and Rambus has gone too far. Some international standardization bodies interfered into the process trying to speed it up a little. While courts of various instances speak out contrary opinions, the fate of patents that belong to Rambus and lie at the foundation of a number of present-day and future standards remains obscure. Overall, the new parties involved took Infineon’s side. As well as the US judge James Timoni who accused Rambus of unpremeditated evidence concealment (he said they had destroyed all internal documentation). Not a big thing, actually, but still no pleasure for Rambus.

Elpida

As for pleasures, Rambus should turn to Japan where its long-time partner, Elpida, bought the Yellowstone license. We can take a guess what they might need it for. Elpida did quite well in graphics memory area lately. In March they announced their first DDR II chip in GDDR2-M variant. Of course, Yellowstone doesn’t belong there yet, but it might be a nice idea to combine the two technologies.

(On the other hand, there are problems with GDDR2 as all manufacturers try to push their own version of the standard. It may be that the industry passes by this phase and goes directly to GDDR3, which is approved unanimously and is now drafted by JEDEC. Still, this doesn’t have much to do with GDDR2-M as this graphics memory for mobile devices is a private matter of ATI and Elpida and they won’t look back at GDDR2).

Elpida has just one simple task ahead: maintain normal sales volumes. In the last year, the company sales volumes dropped by 30%, from $874 to $615 million. It should be better this year thanks to the integration with Mitsubishi that sold DRAM chips for $362 million last year; the collaboration with Powerchip, which is now governed by Elpida, not Mitsubishi, and sells to Elpida half of its products (and Powerchip is planning to double the total output in 2003). Summing it all up, we think Elpida can win back its fifth place by the time the annual results are summed up.

One more thing to be mentioned: the agreement with Kingston to become an OEM memory modules maker for Elpida since Q2. It’s quite possible that the modules will be made of Powerchip’s chips. Elpida will only have to stick its brand on and try to sell the end product.