Dave:
It seems that someone is putting strong pressure on JEDEC to brand Rambus a hi-tech pariah.
john
electronicnews.com
Rambus Case Raises Concerns
By Amy Zuckerman and Rosalind McLymont
News coverage of the battle between Rambus Inc. of Mountain View, Calif., and the hottest names in the chip world has largely glossed over the allegations of potential abuse of the standards-setting process in committees of the Joint Electronic Device Engineering Council (JEDEC).
The courts are exploring whether Rambus has the right to extract royalties for its SDRAM and double data rate (DDR) memory chips from big-name chip manufacturers like Intel, Micron Technology, Hyundai Electronics Industries Co. and Infineon Technologies.
But the bigger and possibly longer-lasting question is whether high-tech consortia are able to control participants in their standards-setting activities. The Rambus case is just one of several in recent years that illuminates weaknesses in the consortium model.
While boosters of the consortia movement like Carl Cargill, head of standards at Sun Microsystems Inc., Palo Alto, Calif., tout the speed of delivery that consortia provide, consortia critics raise the specter of antitrust infringement and the lack of any coordination among consortia. The very speed that make consortia the hot way to produce and standardize technology can also lead to redundancy and lack of interoperability on a global basis.
Critics, who mainly spring from the traditional standards-developing arena, view consortia as interesting models for getting work done in a fast-pace, global economy. But they also view some consortia as closed systems that—with the wrong leadership—could end up being cartels.
Consortia critics also point out that there is no overall coordination of consortia activity worldwide. Consortia compete just like companies compete, down to promoting redundant specifications. The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) are attempting to address the issue of global interoperability, particularly in the area of e-commerce.
These issues surfaced this fall during Congressional hearings into an American strategic standards policy. Cargill said he's been approached by members of the U.S. House Technology Committee to appear at additional hearings on the consortium model being arranged for spring 2001. No dates have been set.
Rambus develops and licenses scalable bandwidth, chip-connection technologies that enable semiconductor memory devices and ASICs to keep pace with fast processors and controllers. Rambus technology is incorporated into DRAM chips and the logic devices that control them.
Company officials claim Rambus technology is based on an open standard that's accessible to all semiconductor companies and deny any wrongdoing in JEDEC. But Micron Technology, Hyundai Electronics and Infineon Technologies have all accused Rambus of subverting the JEDEC process by not offering up its SDRAM patents while attending JEDEC sessions to develop an open standard for high-speed chips.
It's common for high-tech consortia to require companies participating in standards development to surrender patents or intellectual property rights (IPRs) on any product or design related to the standard. That way, all patents and IPRs are on the table for consideration and no one party has market domination.
Rambus was a member of the consortium for about five years and stopped participating around 1996, according to Ken McGhee, director of technical affairs at JEDEC. Last March, he saw consortium members in the news when Rambus sued Hitachi Ltd. over the SDRAM memory controller it had sold to Sega Enterprises Ltd. for its Dreamcast game console. The lawsuit against Hitachi is unrelated to the litigation with Micron Technology, Hyundai Electronics and Infineon Technologies.
Interestingly, Hitachi also mentioned a possible violation of JEDEC rules in its case with Rambus; McGhee says none of the parties to that suit formally contacted JEDEC. "They (Hitachi) did not consult us." The Hitachi case was settled out of court, but McGhee said the question of whether Rambus acted improperly in JEDEC still remains and is a question in the current suit with other major chipmakers.
JEDEC President John Kelly sees the Rambus case as possibly having major implications for the consortia world. While being careful to not take sides, he said he is concerned that the courts weigh in quickly on what rules and procedures consortia should take in order to ensure confidence in their processes.
"We are aware of fact that allegations have been made that Rambus may have abused the JEDEC standards-setting process. These kinds of allegations tend to chill participation of companies in the voluntary standards-setting process we are responsible for. We don't know what happened. But subjectively, which of the players had knowledge of our rules or patent portfolios is impossible for us to know. We are clearly concerned that there is an allegation that someone has abused the voluntary process by which we do business," Kelly said.
The Rambus case isn't the first time competitors, meeting in consortia standards working groups, have accused each other of malfeasance, according to Kelly. Dell Computer Corp. faced similar charges about five years ago. Those accusations of misuse of consortia activity went before the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), but the FTC said it didn't have sufficient facts to render an opinion.
As Kelly points out, most claims of improper conduct within consortia standards-setting groups are ironed out well before they end up in court. In the fall of 1999, the former Ameritech came close to filing complaints against the CableLabs consortium regarding a cable standard. All charges were dropped when SBC bought out Ameritech.
"The courts should weigh-in and provide guidance for the industry as to where the responsibilities lie in this context. If intellectual property interest is involved, who has the obligation to make disclosure and when, to what extent (do) other companies participating in the process rely on the good faith of the parties. All parties must know clearly who has the responsibility to disclose the existence of intellectual property in the standards-setting process and what reliance other participants in the process can place upon each other."
"Essentially, what rules are we playing by? If I don't know, it engenders a mistrust of the entire process. That's what we see as being worrying with this whole situation out of which this allegation grows. Whether the allegation is true or not we cannot say," Kelly said.
Kelly said he hoped another fives years wouldn't pass before the courts provide guidance on both the Rambus case and the larger question of consortia procedures regarding IPRs in the standards-setting process. He was not confident, however, that the courts would provide this level of guidance. JEDEC, in the meantime, is reviewing its own processes and procedures to ensure they are providing sufficient guidance to its members.
"The rules are not self enforcing," he said. "All we can do is make sure our rules are clear and precise. If there are no consequences for violation of the rules then the rules become dead and that is not what we want."
The fact that consortia are booming is undeniable. Consortia exist to cover just about every aspect of technology, from e-commerce to Internet security, to object management and business-to-business communication. The speed factor of consortia can't be denied. In such an approach industry, representatives can hash out standards as a team of companies, developing specs far more quickly than traditional standards organizations allow. And in the high-tech world, where new technologies are spinning out so rapidly, speed equals survival. |
