Analysis: Impact still unclear in broad ITC import ban

Of Kindles and netbooks
Qualcomm said none of its products are affected because it moved some packaging operations to Amkor which has a Tessera license. However, Tessera's general counsel Bernard Cassidy said the move is not sufficient.

"Our position is Amkor is not in compliance with its license agreement with us and Qualcomm ships through Amkor at its peril," Cassidy said referring to a separate case between Tessera and Amkor.

Representatives of Freescale and Spansion said chips in fine-pitch BGA packages are affected, however they would not list those chips.

"We're not communicating that kind of detail," said John Nation, director of corporate marketing at Spansion. "A lot of part numbers come in different packages," he added.

On its Web site, Freescale says its i.Mx and Dragonball processor families "are not available from Freescale for import or sale in the United States prior to September 2010" due to the ITC ruling.

The i.Mx chips are used in a wide variety of products including the Amazon Kindle which uses the i.Mx31. The i.Mx515 is one of many chips seeding an emerging market for ARM- and Linux-based netbooks, currently one of the hottest growth markets in computing. In addition, multiple OEM readers say the ban also impacts many Freescale Coldfire processors widely used in embedded systems.

"We have reached out to customers, informed and educated our employees, and established a very comprehensive infrastructure to comply with the ruling," said a Freescale spokesman in an email exchange. "We have achieved compliance in a manner that has minimized the impact on our customers and our ongoing business," he added.

Netbooks have not been impacted significantly because most use chips bought and assembled into systems in Asia, said another Freescale spokesman in a telephone interview. "The Kindle probably sits in the same category--I imagine it is assembled outside the U.S.," he said.

Amazon.com did not return a request for an interview on the subject. STMicroelectronics also did not return a request for an interview.

The ITC imposed cease-and-desist orders on all the chip companies involved except ST and AMD. It found those two companies had no significant inventories of infringing chips in the U.S.