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Technology Stocks : Rambus (RMBS) - Eagle or Penguin -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bilow who wrote (52654)	9/6/2000 12:27:27 AM
From: Don Green	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 93625

Electronics firms in war over patents: Companies seek cross-licensing, counter-suits to cope with offenses Domestic chip and electronics makers are embroiled in an international patent war. Squabbles over patents and royalties are becoming fiercer amid a rash of lawsuits recently filed by several of the world's top electronics firms. Domestic firms are trying to decide on measures to cope with offenses including patent swapping deals and counter-suits. Recently, Rambus, a U.S.-based microchip technology provider, alleged that domestic DRAM (dynamic random access memory) chip makers, Hyundai Electronics Industries (HEI) and Samsung Electronics, infringed on its patents and must pay royalties for the use of its technology. The allegation is part of Rambus' on-going battle against the world's major memory chip makers to protect its key memory acceleration patents. Hitachi and Toshiba of Japan have agreed to pay royalties to the firm. Contesting the allegation, HEI, along with Micron Technology Inc., filed U.S. federal lawsuits Aug. 30 claiming that the Rambus' patents in question are invalid and unenforceable. Rambus only licenses its technology to manufactures and doesn't make its own products. With royalties being its major revenue source the company is expected to intensify its license claims. In the latest move, Intel Corp. is becoming more aggressive in its bid to protect its patents. The world's largest chipmaker sued Broadcom Corp., its rival in high-speed communications chips and Via Technologies, a Taiwanese chipset producer that uses Intel's competitor Advanced Micro Devices' processors. Hitachi is also in a legal battle with its memory chip rival Nanya of Taiwan. Mobile phone makers are also faced with intensifying royalty disputes with U.S. firms such as Lucent Technologies, Motorola and Nortel Networks, which provide key technologies for CDMA wireless services. The telecom equipment firms remained low-key in patent claims at a time when the domestic CDMA market was shaping up. But as Korean firms emerged as wireless handset powerhouses, they have recently been raising demands for royalties, sources said. It is perceived that Motorola, which rivals domestic firms in the handset sales, will be especially aggressive in its royalty claims in a bid to weaken the price competitiveness of Korean firms. The company requested 1.7-3.3 percent royalties for local firms. Lucent and LG Electronics have recently agreed on 3 percent of royalties per mobile handset. According to ETRI, Korean companies will have to pay at least 2 trillion won in royalties to foreign firms for using technologies for third-generation mobile services, called IMT-2000. The institute said regardless of which standards, cdma2000 licensed by Qualcomm and W-CDMA developed by Nokia and Ericsson, local firms choose, they will be forced to pay 2 trillion won in royalties. The royalty burden will hurt domestic firms in their competition with Japanese firms in the third-generation mobile service. Japanese firms like Sony and Mitsubishi, which were absent in the CDMA market, are jumping in on the race to provide 3G telecom equipment. According to sources, they have driven down their royalties owed to Qualcomm through cross-license deals. Japanese firms provide chip manufacturing solutions and telecom technologies to Qualcomm, in exchange for cuts in their royalties, which are at least 2 percent lower than the amount Korean firms have to pay. Korean firms are also becoming aggressive in the global patent battle. LG Electronics (LGE), holding some 200 patents related to computer structure and digital technology, recently filed lawsuits against five U.S and Taiwanese computer makers alleging they infringed on its technology to design data transmission channels in computers. In a survey conducted last October, the company found some 30 PC makers in the U.S., Japan, Taiwan and Europe have used its technology without proper license deals. It has also demanded networking and chip developers like Hitachi, Cisco Systems, Silicon Graphics and Unisys sign license deals with it. LGE has recently signed an agreement with Intel Corp. under which the world's largest chipmaker would pay royalties to the company. LGE said the Intel deal would in effect boost its chance of winning the suit, which would generate hundreds of millions of dollars in royalty revenues. As a defense, local companies are also increasingly seeking patent swaps that are likely to grow in the chip and digital products. Because of the complexity of technologies, digital products cannot be made with just one company's patents and will depend more heavily on license exchanges. Korean electronics firms have strong patent portfolios in digital media technology, enhancing its position in the cross-licensing negotiations. Samsung acquired some 50 patents for technologies related to IMT-2000, digital compression and DVD last year alone. LGE also has secured a host of patents in digital technology areas like vestigial side band (VSB) chip, MPEG-7, DVD and networking equipment. Updated: 09/06/2000 by Hwang Jang-jin Staff reporter Korean Herald

To: Bilow who wrote (52654)	9/6/2000 8:52:21 AM
From: John Walliker	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 93625

Carl, I had a look at the files you linked. Several interesting points emerged. 1) A long time ago when we were discussing relative power consumption, you insisted that notebook PCs would not need parallel termination to achieve acceptable signal integrity. It is clear from the data presented by Micron that all current DDR memories need parallel termination, negating most of the power savings you claimed. 2) There are many types of DDR module: SO-DIMM for notebooks PCs (max 2 modules) unbuffered DIMM - needs duplicate address drivers and tracks if more than two modules are to be used) registered DIMM - address needs to be sent in advance and temporarily stored in a register on the DIMM to reduce address bus loading. This inherently increases latency. FET switched and registered - reduces data bus loading in server applications. This inherently increases latency. 3) Micron claim that PC2100 needs continuing development work and that ASIC design and layout are "very critical". 4) Data from Micron shows that at high data rates the power consumption of PC2100 DDR and PC800 RDRAM are almost identical. I suspect that if the RDRAM was operated at 60 ohms bus impedance (which is allowed for soldered chips not mounted on RIMMs) RDRAM would be considerably better. John