IceShark,
If MU loses, then they have to pay RMBS court decided damages (which will likely be the royalty amount in the worse case)
Rambus has said that anyone who takes them to court and loses will not receive a license for Rambus-patented technology. Right now, that would appear to prevent MU from making current forms of SDRAM and DDR DRAM. So the worst case is much worse than just paying royalties.
In this worst case (from Micron's perspective), suppose MU were prevented from making SDRAM/DDR. What do they have, 20% of the market (I'm guessing)? OEMs would certainly face some problems if 20% of the production disappeared (granted, the other competitors would kick up production, but wouldn't be able to fill all the gap). The shortage would probably hit the retail segment before it hit the major OEMs, however.
Micron isn't going to let it get this far, though. If they feel there's a risk that they'll lose, they'll settle. Else, Appleton would be out of a job and would probably never find another one.
OTOH, if Rambus loses, Geoff Tate is probably in the same position, so my guess is that they'd settle for very "Micron-friendly" terms if the trial starts to go against them as well. So I'm changing my previous statement and guessing that this will settle either way.
Dave |
