TICKER TALK

Rambus Inc. shares rose 18% on Thursday amid optimism that sales of its Direct Rambus memory-chip technology, which speeds up the memory functions of personal computers, will enjoy strong growth.

Rambus shares soared $9.38 to $61.88 in trading of 4.17 million shares on Nasdaq, more than quadruple their daily average during the past three months. Earlier, the stock touched $63.25.

Rambus’ Direct DRAM technology boosts the speed of memory chips used in personal computers and is licensed by makers of dynamic random-access memory, or DRAM, which is the main memory component in personal computers.

Chief Executive Geoff Tate, speaking at the Banc-America Robertson Stephens semiconductor conference in San Francisco , cited a forecast from market research firm Instat estimating that Rambus’ technology will be in more than 50% of memory chips by 2001, up from 1% last year.

“I’m careful to say that’s not our forecast,” Tate noted in an interview after the presentation. “[But] that’s what we’re shooting for.”

Tate also displayed a slide during his presentation demonstrating that Intel Corp. expects all Intel chipsets for desktop PCs to have Rambus’ product in them by 2001.