Rambus Needs Intel on Its Side

Perhaps more importantly, Intel has been on the DDR plan for several generations, and the shift to a new technology by a giant such as Intel would cause huge ripples up and down its supply chain.

"While Rambus has designers who will help out and provide original controller designs to those companies who want to use XDR in their products, redesigning a memory controller for a specific product may be a hard sell for a lot of companies who are already entrenched in DDR," says Jon Peddie, president of Jon Peddie Research, a specialist in the graphics-chip industry.

However, one possible answer, says analyst Erach Desai with American Technology Research, could be Intel signaling that it would use both XDR2 and DDR3.

Regardless, Hughes' public commitment to moving Rambus in Intel's direction indicates that he wants everyone to know exactly where the company is headed. And this time, it doesn't involve a courthouse.