Taiwanese chipset firm Via said today that it sold NT$648.7 million of its kit in the period up to May 1999. That represents a rise in revenues of 218 per cent compared to the same period last year. On a sequential basis, claimed Via, its sales rose by 65 per cent from January to May 1999. Net sales in thousands of NT dollars amounted to 648,694 in May 1999, compared to 204,181 in May 1998. January through May 1999 sales amounted to 2,896,829, compared to 1,756,079 compared to the same period last year. Again, sales are in thousands of NT dollars. Meanwhile, Rambus stocks rose on Wall Street, as analysts sought to bolster its long term position. Intel UK, yesterday, maintained that Rambus was still its preferred future memory technology. It is waiting for its delayed Camino 820 chipset to arrive and is hoping that there will be enough RIMMs to make everything fit together. However, it must be concerned that Mosel Vitelic, the biggest Taiwanese memory technology company, pointed to technical problems with Direct Rambus when it announced support for PC-133 SDRAM at Computex last week. According to Mosel Vitelic, PC OEMs are demanding PC-133 rather than Direct Rambus solutions, a point Intel has so far not addressed. Last week, an Intel representative at Computex confirmed yields on Rambus RIMMs would not rise until the end of the year. Meanwhile, memory company Apacer, an Acer subsidiary, also made the same point and said it was pushing PC-133 hard. ® Computex 99 coverage