Cyrix is has signed up for Rambus, joining AMD on the Intel-led memory bandwagon. The NatSemi sub is licensing the Rambus interface for use in future versions of its integrated processor. It will be interesting to see how this squares up with Cyrix’s low pricing model. Is it planning a server on a chip, or what? The company says that Direct Rambus is an "excellent match" for its processor design philosophy, citing the scalability of the technology, chunky memory bandwidth and low latency. Rambus will help Cyrix achieve the "optimum balance of performance and cost", according to Jean-Louis Bories, executive vice-president at Cyrix. But his remarks appear to have more in common with the Rambus spec sheet, as opposed to reality. Right now, Rambus is expensive. Set–up costs are high, yields are not particularly good and there is no guarantee that this will improve by the end of the year. This is why many chipset vendors are gunning for PC 133, a much cheaper and more stable alternative to Rambus. However, PC 133 is not supported by Intel. And where Intel leads, Cyrix and AMD will follow. ® Via puts chipset weight behind 133