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To: Bilow who wrote (34168)	11/9/1999 8:38:00 AM
From: Jdaasoc	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 93625

bilow: Could Micron's decision to try to collect royalties on PC100 RAM have any price ramifications. How many RAM module manufacturers cross licensing agreements with Micron. john techweb.com Dispute Could Result In Licensing Fees -- Micron patent action ruffles memory makers Marcia Savage San Francisco - A patent dispute is brewing in the memory business, putting Micron Electronics Inc. at odds with some memory manufacturers. At issue is a module technology that Micron claims it owns. According to two memory vendors and a memory test lab, the technology is included in an Intel Corp. reference design for PC100 memory modules that have been used by manufacturers for the past two years. Micron, Nampa, Idaho, recently notified several memory manufacturers that some of their designs infringe on Micron patents. The technology in question is widely used by module makers, said Chris Slavens, production manager at the U.S. division of Dane-Elec, Irvine, Calif., which received a notice from Micron. It allows manufacturers to program the Serial EEPROM (electrically erasable programmable read-only memory) chip after it has been installed on the module, reducing manufacturing costs and allowing for flexibility, Slavens said. In an Oct. 28 letter to a module manufacturer, Hoyt Fleming III, Micron's chief patent counsel, said, "Micron expects you to respect our intellectual property. Thus, Micron expects you to cease producing infringing memory modules or enter good-faith license discussions." But some companies wonder why it has taken Micron so long to notify them about the patents, one of which dates from 1997. "Micron's really not playing by the rules," said Slavens. "It's something that could have been avoided. We could have engineered around this a long time ago." Mark Moshayedi, chief operating officer of Simple Technology Inc., Santa Ana, Calif., said companies are wondering why Micron did not previously raise the patent issue to JEDEC, an Arlington, Va.-based standards development organization for the semiconductor industry. Micron's Fleming confirmed the manufacturer has sent out notices to more than one company but declined to comment further on the patent matter. Micron's notice means memory module makers will have to change their designs or enter a licensing agreement with Micron, which could mean facing thousands of dollars in royalties, Slavens said. For resellers, Micron's patent claims could lead to higher module prices, said John Deters, president of Computer Memory Test Labs, Huntington Beach, Calif., a private company that performs memory qualifications on Intel-based server and workstations platforms. "We've got a number of memory vendors concerned and if it's [Micron's patent claims] true, it's almost like PC100 could be held hostage by Micron," Deters said. However, said the technology should be easy enough to remove from the module design, said Simple's Moshayedi. The feature allows a system to be designated as write-protected so a user cannot accidentally write to it, he said. Simple has not found any applications that use the feature and is trying to determine whether any of its customers actually use it. Removing the technology would result in a module design would not be PC100-compliant under Intel's reference design, Moshayedi added. "It's kind of damned if you do, damned if you don't," he said. An Intel spokesman said Intel had not seen the letter. The Santa Clara, Calif.-based has a cross-licensing agreement with Micron, but any company that uses a reference design is responsible for making sure they have the necessary intellectual property rights, he said. Ken McGhee, staff director of technical matters at JEDEC, said he had heard of Micron's letter and planned to contact Micron to determine whether the issue affects the JEDEC standard.

To: Bilow who wrote (34168)	11/11/1999 7:27:00 PM
From: Jdaasoc	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 93625

Bilow: You tricky little skunk. You are really showing your true colors. Try to take everything out of context. RE<<November 8, 1999 Dataquest sees DRAM boosting semiconductor market to $215B in three years At the company's annual forecast conference here, Ronald Bohn, director of semiconductor research, said the industry should grow 14 percent this year, 17 percent next year and another 19 percent in 2001 to a total of $215 billion in worldwide revenue. The figure is still short of the $300 billion executives in 1995 saw the industry reaching by 2000. But that was before the collapse in DRAM prices and overcapacity prompted industry recessions in 1996 (down 6 percent) and 1998 (down 8 percent). techweb.com >> I am going to add next two paragraphs At the company's annual forecast conference here, Ronald Bohn, director of semiconductor research, said the industry should grow 14 percent this year, 17 percent next year and another 19 percent in 2001 to a total of $215 billion in worldwide revenue. The figure is still short of the $300 billion executives in 1995 saw the industry reaching by 2000. But that was before the collapse in DRAM prices and overcapacity prompted industry recessions in 1996 (down 6 percent) and 1998 (down 8 percent). Bohn said he expects growth in the United States to slow a bit but be offset by resurgent economies in Asia and Latin America. Returning to vigor and leading the charge for the other sectors is DRAM, which fell from a peak of more than $40 billion in annual sales in 1995 to less than $15 billion three years later. While nothing on the order of Windows 95 looms on the horizon to increase DRAM usage, performance demands and the ramp of Direct Rambus DRAMs next year will help boost the sector to a new peak of $63 billion in annual revenue by 2003, Bohn said. john