Rambus Inc. extended its patent license to Elpida Memory Inc., allowing the company to sell DDR-2 memory in return for paying Rambus a royalty payment every quarter.
Rambus signed its initial license with Elpida in 2000, shortly after Japanese semiconductor giants NEC and Hitachi merged their DRAM operations in late 2000. The new deal extends the Rambus-Elpida patent relationship out to March 2008, and gives Elpida legal rights to manufacture a number of different types of computer memory.
Although memory giant Micron Technology and Infineon have heatedly contested Rambus’ claims that it owns fundamental rights to several patents used in the technology of dynamic RAM, Elpida and Samsung Semiconductor have been among Rambus’ most loyal partners. In February, an independent administrative judge for the Federal Trade Commission tossed out an antitrust lawsuit the FTC filed, one which the agency later protested. Elpida ranked seventh in worldwide DRAM sales during the first quarter of 2004, recording $245.0 million in sales. Samsung, Micron, and Hynix Semiconductor made up the top three memory vendors.
News source: ExtremeTech
