Joe's news links

EETimes UK:

Semico Research Corp. (4/5/07) lowered its semiconductor forecast for the second time in recent weeks, saying that the IC market will grow a mere 1.8 percent this year

Intel shared significant details about its roadmap with AnandTech. It's a long read, but interesting, particularly in its breadth of detail.

Nehalem will no longer use a FSB but a serial point to point interconnect. Even more revolutionary is the fact that Nehalem will have an integrated memory controller (IMC) and that the number of serial interconnects is variable (Intel's version of "HyperTransport"). Another potentially groundbreaking move is that some Nehalem CPUs will have a GPU integrated (Intel's version of "Fusion"). With an integrated memory controller, new interconnect, and potentially integrated graphics, Nehalem will obviously require a new socket.

Intel would not give any more detail, but it is clear that the GPU will not be high-end (that would require too much power); more likely it will be a kind of midrange (or even low-end depending on your perspective) solution. Intel would not confirm this, but it seems pretty clear to us that Xeon DP and desktop products will probably have an IMC that supports DDR3. Xeon MPs will probably have an IMC that supports registered FB-DIMMs with DDR3. Nehalem should first be available in the second half of 2008 as Intel talked about "production ramping in 2008, with full production in 2009".

Rambus Inc. Top Ten Shareholders: (View entire post by kashogi at IV)

PRIMECAP ... 11.0M
Fidelity ... 5.1M
OppenheimerFunds ... 3.0M
Farmwald (P Michael) ... 2.8M
Tate (Geoffrey) ... 2.7M
Barclays Global ... 2.1M
Vanguard Group, Inc. ... 1.9M
Steele (Stuart J) ... 1.6M
Horowitz (Mark) ... 1.4M
State Street ... 875.2K

VoluntaryTrade.org posted a nice summary of Rambus Inc.'s appeal filed with the CAFC

Rambus’s case moves to the federal courts after nearly five years of administrative proceedings before the FTC. The FTC Act gave Rambus the choice of appellate venue. A randomly assigned three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit, which currently has ten active and three senior judges, will hear the appeal.

The FTC Act authorizes the court of appeals to “make and enter a decree affirming, modifying, or setting aside the order of the Commission.” The court may review questions of law anew, but the FTC Act provides that “[t]he findings of the Commission as to the facts, if supported by evidence, shall be conclusive.”

Longusa posted at IV details and comments about the Rambus proceedings in HJW Court on 4/4/07

The Net Net
For me, and after reading the Joint CMC stmt prior – thanks NJ – is that going through all these cases was going to take forever, and consolidation of the conduct phases gets to an overall result earlier, though I really wanted a 2007 date for the sake of my 2008 LEAPs. And it is very good to see a definitive schedule on DDR2, which is already combined. If we can get a 2007 date for the AT trial now that the arbitration delay tactic is over, we may still have a great 2007.

HT Pinehurst Joe.