All the while, DDR has gained steam as a less expensive alternative to RDRAM.

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Demand for RDRAM memory chips has been slow to pick up, as has supply.

FORBES: Rambus Patent Army Marches On

It comes with 128 megabytes of RDRAM memory built in, expandable to 512 MB.

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Micron is also a strong promoter of DDR memory, which Rambus can't help but see as a potential threat to its RDRAM memory.

FORBES: Rambus Patent Army Marches On

But memory manufacturers have balked at having to make bigger, more expensive Rambus DRAM (RDRAM) chips when their existing lines of SDRAM were beginning to turn profitable after an industrywide downturn.

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"Intel has had to come to terms with the reality that the RDRAM technology has not come online fast enough, " says Kevin Krewell, an analyst at MicroDesign Resources, a chip industry research firm in Sebastopol, Calif.

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Fearing a botched launch for Pentium 4 because of insufficient supplies of RDRAM, Intel has conceded in recent weeks that it will use other memory technologies like conventional SDRAM and possibly DDR as a memory option with Pentium 4.

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Should RDRAM never gain the wide acceptance the company had hoped for, Rambus' patent claims are an attempt to ensure the company gets a piece of the action through royalty payments, no matter what type of memory takes hold, whether SDRAM, DDR or its preferred RDRAM.

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