MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. -- Hitachi Ltd.'s settlement of a patent dispute with Rambus Inc. requires the Japanese chip maker to pay royalties on fast synchronous DRAMs and double data rate (DDR) memories only through the end of this year. After Dec. 31, the marketing of those devices will be shifted to a new joint venture with NEC Corp., called NEC Hitachi Memories Inc.
Last week's licensing agreement between Hitachi and Rambus will not cover memories sold by the joint venture, said Avo Kanadjian, vice president of worldwide marketing at Rambus in Mountain View. "It covers the transition period, before the NEC and Hitachi joint DRAM venture becomes effective," he added.
Hitachi and Rambus made headlines last week when they announced a new licensing agreement to cover SDRAMs, DDR DRAMs and controllers interfacing to those memories. In settling patent lawsuits in the U.S. and Germany, Hitachi agreed to license Rambus patents for high-speed interfaces on SDRAMs, DDR memories and controllers (see June 22 story).
Rambus maintains that its interface patents apply to high-speed SDRAMs and DDR memories, in addition to its own Rambus DRAM architecture. The company expects to strike expanded licensing pacts for more royalties from other DRAM makers (see June 23 story).
Semiconductor analyst Bob Merritt of Semico Research Inc. raised questions about Hitachi's payment of SDRAM royalties after the start of its joint venture with NEC. The Redwood City, Calif.-based analyst was correct, but Rambus' Kanadjian said Hitachi will continue to pay royalties for controller logic interfaces on its Super H-series of microprocessors because these MPUs connect directly to the high-speed memories. Hitachi SDRAMs and DDR memories, however, will fall outside of new licensing pact once the NEC joint venture begins to sell those parts in 2001, he confirmed.
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