Elpida and Rambus Modify and Extend SDRAM and DDR Patent Licensing Agreement; New agreement includes DDR2 and FB-DIMM innovations

- Rambus Inc. (Nasdaq:RMBS), a leading developer of chip interface products and services today announced an extension of its SDRAM and DDR DRAM patent licensing agreement with Elpida Memory, Inc. to include Rambus innovations for DDR2 DRAM, fully-buffered modules (FB-DIMMs), GDDR1, GDDR2, GDDR3, RLDRAM1, RLDRAM2 and FCRAM memory products.

The new agreement extends Elpida's license term to March 2008. The license scope has been expanded to permit Elpida to sell SDRAM, DDR DRAM, DDR2 DRAM, associated FB-DIMMs and specialty DRAM products in exchange for interim fixed quarterly payments to Rambus. These interim fixed quarterly payments will only apply until certain trigger events occur. The interim shift from per unit to fixed payments is not expected to have a material impact on Rambus's 2004 revenues.

"This represents our first SDRAM and DDR DRAM license extending past 2005 as well as our first DRAM license covering DDR2," said Geoff Tate, chief executive officer at Rambus. "This agreement gives us predictability of royalty income from Elpida for the immediate future while giving Elpida a path to potential cost savings in the longer term. We view this agreement as mutually beneficial and are pleased to lengthen and expand our relationship with our long-time customer Elpida."

Since its founding in 1990, Rambus has focused on advancing system performance through innovations in various applications, including logic and memory interfaces, controller architecture, and system design. The result is a broad portfolio of innovations and patents that enables semiconductor manufacturers and system designers to achieve ever-increasing levels of functionality and performance, which allows them to improve performance, lower system costs, mitigate risk with silicon-proven designs, and reduce time to market.

About Rambus Inc.

Rambus is one of the world's leading providers of advanced chip interface products and services. Since its founding in 1990, the company's innovations, breakthrough technologies and integration expertise have helped industry-leading chip and system companies solve their most challenging and complex I/O problems and bring their products to market. Rambus's interface solutions can be found in numerous computing, consumer, and communications products and applications. Rambus is headquartered in Los Altos, Calif., with regional offices in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Taiwan and Japan. Additional information is available at www.rambus.com.

Rambus is a registered trademark of Rambus Inc. Other trademarks that may be mentioned in this release are the intellectual property of their respective owners. This release contains forward-looking statements under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, such as the statement related to the possible effect that the shift from per unit royalty payments to fixed payments could have on Rambus's 2004 revenues and as to the beneficial nature of the extended agreement. Such forward-looking statements are based on current expectations, management's beliefs, and certain assumptions made by the Company's management. Actual results may differ materially. Among the reasons that could cause actual results to differ materially are: Elpida's sales, strength of the DRAM market, and other factors that are described more fully in our SEC filings including our 10-K and 10-Qs.