From 779@7? Mon Jan 05 17:08:59 1998 Received: from pe-gtaterambus.com (pe-gtate-rambus.com (192.93.42.39)) ‘by jupiter.rambus com (8.8.S/hub-sunos) with SMTP id NAA20729: ‘Mon, 5 Jan 1998 13:32:02 -0800 (PST) ‘Message-Id; <3.0.32.19980105132736.00756dc8@198.147.244.4> X-Sender:gtate@198.147.264.4 X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Pro Version 3.0 (32) Date: Mon. 05 Jan 1998 13:27:40 -0800 ‘To: mooring@rambus.com,fleming@rambus com From: Geoff Tate Subject: beloit - thoughts from the holidays Ce: champel@rambus.com, roberts(@rambus com mooring @rambus com. toprani@rambus.com. harmon@rambus.com, edi@rambus.com, sgtateGrambus.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: textplain; charser="us-asci X-UIDL: 206d8flaceadSa28 14458558682 { think we should email paupete today re-iterating what we agreed 10 12/24 ‘and especially that they will not talk to dram companies about beloit until 1) we've agreed on presentation 2) we doit jointly here's some thoughts/ideas that came to me‘over the holidays about Beloit and our sategy with inteVéram companiesipe oems/other customerspress/analyss/investors questionsanalysis That isthe % memory subsystem performance increase of beloit v srar-100: tow docs it compare fo increase for srar-66 to sdram-100; nd fom edo to sdrame66? (is beloit = one generation incremental performance increase?) hat is celative performance for non-visualization appsvisualization apps for 2) beloit by beloit wider ¢) direct rdram 600mbz 4) diceetrdram 800rahz "key stategic question is can memory bandwidth/latency be as good as direct rdram (under load)? how will his change with the next process generation (willamete?) hat is the relative performance of beloit vs a controller wide? (this is ‘rtical for intel’s position that beloit wil kil ddr momentum: need © Show that a controller with ddr is lower performance then beloit) how does beloit do ecc? (with x16Ix8 sdrams) die arealcost of beloit? can it be done with our standard direct ae oF require something specia!? will intel request any additional signals on ‘the rimm interface for beloit? does signal integrityfanout work with a normal direct rac on num channel 3 belots in 3 rim sockets? ‘cana system mix beloitrimms' and real RIMMs? RH 386378 R 233884 ‘OUTSIDE COUNSEL ONLY cx0984-001will Beloit interface run a 800mmbz or 600mh2? if at 800mbz, can we assure 100% yield with iming voltage margins? what will happen to 600mbz fallout direct rérams? where will they get used aPC? brainstorm (crazy) ideas an we do “striped” direct rdram with our interafee streamlined to give Beloit level of performance and cut die area? ("SX" strategy that pete previously tejected - why aot viable?) idea: offer “hobbled” 600mhz direct rdrams at same price as SDRAM instead of beoit? idea: use beloit as spring board to launch interconnect strategy «show bow it poms out that rambus' value isin chip to chip interface end we will ‘start marketing ous technology for all types of chip to chip interfaces and ‘expand our market (TONY - what patents protect our technology for chip-to-chip interfaces?) things we need to ask intethat intel needs to address in their presentation to dram companies ‘sll Beloit be available to anyone (including ints competitors?) - why? for why not? if not, what keeps cyrinami/sunlee from doing their own beloit-ike chips and modules? what is the market share in 99/00 for RIMM motherboards as % of total; and. wat isthe split of the RIMM sockets by beloit and direct rambus RIMMs (for various pricing scenarios). this is the ritical question. ‘what keeps inte/dram companies from doing faster sdrarvdr versions of beloit and promoting/ working on this instead of direct rambus? what is intel's recommended prioritization of 100 mbz sdram direct rdram/ beloit? can every camino motherboard use beoit, 600mhz RIMM, 800mbz RIMM? (CRITICAL thatthe answer here be yes - although ifall modules ahve to be the same flavor i think is ok) private question for intel; confirm shat beloit has 100% rambus-compatble Fterface and uses only rambus protocols for communicating to camino. how does beloit performance compare to direct rdram and to a dr-based system? (eitical that beoit be shown as equaV/beter than ddr but nowhere near a5 good as direct réram) what do dram companies do with their 600mbz direct réram fallout? [NEED « chart showing performance/bandiwidth available from edo, s-66, 5-100, RH 386379 R 233885 ‘OUTSIDE COUNSEL ONLY x0984-002beloit, 1-600, -800 and what the performance requirements of various apps are overtime (99/00. material disclosure/press-analyst-investor-customer positioning pavasked if we feel we have to disclose this since 1 is material (do they ‘vant us to disclose it for their own reasons? remember that gary called {intel on another matter saying we needed to disclose and they told us we ‘couldn’ a it was intel confidential information - this could apply beloitt00) if we have to disclose when/how do we do - press release or paragraph in ‘earings announcement. if we have to disclose do we postion i that we are proactively doing this to help move people more quickly to rambus by redlscing the cisk witha ransitionrsk reduction plan? should we also disclose our postion on patents and that we believe Sarsldearvetc wal likey ininge our patents? this is to show cher whatever path the market takes it intringes our IP. should we tel intel this? change new logic deals to use of r-technology is ONLY for the RAC and NOT for any competitive memory interface. also maybe we should require anyone licensing logic for belit to atthe same time agree 1 pay us royalties on infimging drams? (question: would a dd part need a pllidlifirect ‘connected to Beloit?) ‘we should step through the intel contrac that i available onthe s-1/web “nd point out to analysts/press what our protections are if paranoids get ‘worried that belit isa means of screwing us totaly. (we should do this anyways just in case!) make rimm modile agreements so that our rimum pamnets are ONLY useable in ‘onjunetion with edrams and no non-rdram. our deal wth intel now blocks ts Bom getting royalty on any patents on package/module/ete but ONLY for combination of intel cpu with rérams and r-logic. hhow/when do we tell amd about beloit if we disclose it publicly? what will be their response? positive spin: belot shows intel commitment to rambus-interface and having 2 backuprtranstion with te existng memory standard is what they've done ‘with all new memory controllers to handle the voluem ramp/price premium problems that occur intel contact in renegotiation we should change the deal so that it requires >20% of thelr contollers to have rambus interface AND to be actually use with RIMMS to qualify for "success". this was certainly our original intent. Geoff Tate Rambus RH 386380 ‘Tel NEW AREA CODE: 650-903-3807 R 233886 (OUTSIDE COUNSEL ONLY x0984-003