Rambus nets victories over its licensing fees
Toshiba and Matsushita pay the memory maker for its SDRam and DDR SDRam memory controllers
Rambus has scored important wins in the fight to have its memory patents recognised by announcing that both Toshiba and Matsushita have agreed to pay the contentious licensing fees.
Toshiba has agreed to pay Rambus an undisclosed sum to license Rambus patents for Synchronous DRam (SDRam) and double data rate (DDR) SDRam memory controllers. Matsushita Electric has signed a five-year agreement retrospective to October 2005 for SDRam and DDR SDRam memory controllers, with Rambus receiving royalty payments based on the amount shipped.
The controversial licensing fee stems from a long-running battle between Rambus and many of the main memory makers over the use of DRam technology that Rambus holds patents to. The company has been engaged in a long and costly legal battle with leading players such as Infineon and Hynix, with both companies losing to Rambus in court. Infineon currently pays Rambus $5.7m per quarter, while a US court awarded Rambus $306.9m in damages against Hynix for patent infringement. Hynix is appealing the decision.
Sharon Holt, senior vice-president of sales, licensing and marketing at Rambus, said: “Toshiba was our first patent licensee and we are pleased to continue this long relationship. Our focus of licensing industry leading companies with both our products and patents continues to help push the boundaries of what our collective engineering teams can accomplish.”
Toshiba already pays to license technology patents for Rambus’ high speed, XDR memory, its DDR2 interface cells and its FlexIO processor bus interface.
The announcement that Rambus is finally getting paid for existing DRam technology comes as a new memory technology from developer Freescale finally reaches production status. The Motorola spin-off has spent 10 years developing Magnetoresistive Ram (MRam) and has announced that it has just started commercial production. Like Flash memory, MRam can retain data when the power is off, but it is much faster and far more durable than Flash.
Sumit Sadana, chief technology officer of Freescale, said: “The capabilities of MRam technology have numerous exciting applications in our target markets. The commercial launch of the industry’s first MRam product is a major milestone.”