Hitachi is sued over chip patents

Rambus is to sue Hitachi after it claimed several of its patents relating to memory and microprocessor products had been wilfully infringed by the vendor.

Rambus is to sue Hitachi after it claimed several of its patents relating to memory and microprocessor products had been wilfully infringed by the vendor.

A suit has been filed through which Rambus is seeking an injunction to stop Hitachi manufacturing and selling memory modules that include SD-Ram and DDR products as well as its microprocessor products. The company is also seeking punitive damages for the alleged infringement.

Rambus originally had a licensing agreement with Hitachi which allowed the vendor to use Rambus technology to develop RD-Ram-compatible products.

Rambus claims Hitachi has not produced or marketed any such products and instead has used the technology in products that are not RD-Ram-compatible.

It is believed Hitachi is not the only company Rambus has contacted with regard to ownership of SD-Ram technology. The memory designer has admitted it is in discussions with several other firms and hopes to reach settlements with them. Hitachi is the only company to have a lawsuit filed against it over these patents.

Separately, Rambus has been snubbed by Intel's latest alliance to co-operatively develop next-generation Advanced D-Ram Technology.

Hyundai MicroElectronics, Infineon, Micron, NEC and Samsung have teamed up with Intel to develop a unified D-Ram technology to advance the market, which should come to market in 2003. Together, the chip companies account for over 80 per cent of the current global dynamic memory market.

Rambus, which has been a big partner of Intel's advanced memory technology strategy, has suffered problems with the adoption of its RD-Ram technology, most noticeably with the delayed release of Intel's RD-Ram-compatible 820 chipset. The formal development agreement between the companies expired this month, although Intel is still committed to Rambus.