rambus

Rambus gets into TVs

Rambus, the memory specialist that a lot of people seem to hate, has inked a deal with Toshiba that will let the Japanese giant put XDR memory into its HD TVs.

XDR memory can pass data at 4.8 gigabits per second, which in turn will lead to faster image processing, according to Toshiba. Texas Instruments has also signed licenses to put XDR into projectors containing its DLP chips.

Sony also uses XDR memory in its PlayStation3.

Rambus doesn't manufacture memory. Instead, it designs memory interfaces that allow data to flow faster. Back in the 90s, Intel selected a … Read more

Rambus' board and the CEO's wife

Rambus needs more controversy and scandal like the Internet needs more bloggers and porn. As mired in legal trouble as this company is, you've really got to do something egregious to get noticed.

According to a story by The Recorder, a California legal paper, the wife of Rambus CEO Harold Hughes did just that. Nancy Hughes anonymously posted 170 messages on a popular investor message board over a 10-month period. In her posts, clarissamehitable--alias Nancy Hughes--vigorously defended her embattled husband, and criticized current and former members of the company's management team.

Nancy's posts were so obviously those of a Rambus insider that they aroused not only the suspicion of other posters on the board, but company officials, as well. Rambus brought in outside legal counsel to head up an investigation, which ultimately turned up none other than Hughes' wife.

According to a company spokeswoman, Rambus' board of directors concluded that there was no wrongdoing on the part of either Hughes.

What's troubling is that Nancy was pegged as an insider for good reason. If some of her posts were not inside information, they certainly appear to come razor close to crossing the line. And there's evidence that someone may have removed some of her posts from the message board.

Full disclosure: I was an executive officer of Rambus from 2002 to 2003 and I am a shareholder. I have never posted on an investor message board and neither has my wife...as far as I know.… Read more

Mixed-up bandwidth machine does 3.6 petabits

Herald the dawn of Loki, Norse god of mischief and now high-speed chip-to-chip signaling.

At the International Solid State Circuits Conference in San Francisco, Rambus, the company everyone seems to love to hate, showed off for the first time a technology code-named Loki that it says could significantly cut down the energy consumed by input/output devices.

The experimental device can operate at 6.25 gigabits per second and pass information at 2.2 milliwatts per gigabit. Similar products on the market now can transfer more gigabits per second, but they operate at around 15 to 30 milliwatts per gigabit. … Read more

Rambus wins patent suit and $306 million

Rambus beat Hynix in its patent infringement case and a court ordered Hynix to pay $306 million in damages.

The court upheld all 10 of Rambus' patent claims, said a representative for the company.

The memory designer alleged that Hynix and other large memory manufacturers infringed its patents when making DDR DRAM, the most common type of memory in PCs today. Those memory makers denied this, but have not been winning the argument in court.

Rambus is actively litigating other suits against other memory manufacturers.