Hi stockmarket; Re: "Don't you remember that Samsung pays royalty of DDR to RMBS? Obviously, you don't follow RMBS's event closely enough to get false panic of Samsung's announcement."
Thanks for bringing this to my attention, but in this case, I'm right.
Maybe you missed this: Rambus lost their (first) legal battle to collect royalties on DDR SDRAM a few months ago. Now they no longer pay royalties on a per unit basis. The new royalty structure is a simple fee per quarter. Consequently, the ramp up in DDR production has no financial connection to Rambus.
This was rumored in the trade press at the time of the fraud verdict:
eb-asia.com
siliconstrategies.com
It came out in the conference call for the the June 30 quarter. ( See #reply-16068965 or go to that day's posts on the Fool.) It was widely reported in the trade press:
Rambus slashes royalty rate for SDRAM customer
Rambus Inc. for the next year will allow a "major (synchronous DRAM) licensee" --- believed to be Samsung Electronics Co. --- to make single reduced quarterly payments instead of paying royalties, company officials revealed Thursday in the conference call with financial analysts.
Bob Eulua, vice president and chief financial officer, declined to identify the licensee getting relief. Analysts quickly tagged Samsung, the largest global SDRAM producer, as the beneficiary. Samsung officials could not be immediately reached for comment, but in the past U.S. officials have referred all licensing questions to the Korean headquarters, which is closed for the weekend.
The Samsung SDRAM licensing agreement with Rambus allows the firm to stop making royalty payments if any major competitor is found by a responsible court not to have infringed the patent. This fact was disclosed in the Richmond, Va., federal court trial that found Infineon Technologies AG hadn't infringed the Rambus SDRAM patents.
Rambus' Eulua said that under the renegotiated SDRAM license agreement, the unnamed chip maker will make single quarterly payments in lieu of royalties based on its synchronous DRAM sales in each of the next four quarters. He didn't identify the payment amount but conceded in questioning that "it is reduced" below the expected level of SDRAM and DDR shipments of the firm.
Danny Lam, chip analyst with Communications and Computing Reports, New York, said even if Samsung isn't the chip firm getting the SDRAM royalty relief from Rambus, the Korean company should be able to claim the same deal under its "most favored nation" clause granting it any lower rates that Rambus gives any other licensee. The "most favored nation" clause in the Samsung licensing pact was also revealed during the Infineon trial.
..."
ebnews.com
Wall Street said the same thing:
news.cnet.com
-- Carl |
