The companies also sign a memorandum of understanding relating to a new generation of memory technologies.
By Suzanne Deffree, Managing Editor, News -- Electronic News, 1/20/2010
Two memory giants have called a truce this week, agreeing to a litigation settlement and design partnership in the process.
Samsung Electronics and Rambus Tuesday announced that they have reached an agreement settling all claims between them and licensing Rambus’ patent portfolio covering all Samsung semiconductor products including a perpetual fully paid-up license to certain current DRAM products.
As part of the deal, Samsung will invest $200 million in Rambus stock. Samsung will further make an initial payment of $200 million and a quarterly payment of about $25 million to Rambus for the next five years. In all, the payments total $900 million.
In addition, Samsung and Rambus have signed a memorandum of understanding relating to a new generation of memory technologies. The two companies said they will initially focus on graphics and mobile memory and will further review a potential collaboration on server and high-speed NAND flash memories.
Both Samsung and Rambus said they are pleased to resolve their differences and move forward.
“We have a tremendous opportunity to renew a partnership which has created solutions that have benefited consumers worldwide,” said Harold Hughes, president and CEO of Rambus, in a statement. “Bringing together Samsung’s market and technology leadership with our innovations for high-performance and high-efficiency memory architectures will make possible an exciting new generation of mobile, computing, and consumer electronics products.”
The agreement settles a 2004 suit filed by Rambus against Samsung, alleging the company conspired to block the success of Rambus' memory through price fixing. Those allegations were also filed against Hynix and Micron. After being postponed once, the case may be postponed again, as Micron has requested a delay citing health of its lead attorney. Analysts Tuesday afternoon suggested that the Samsung settlement might suggest Hynix and Micron will also seek settlements, although on a smaller payment scale.
Rambus has also claimed patent infringement by Samsung and other defendants.
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