MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. -- While legal battles intensify with other chip makers, Rambus Inc. here announced a new licensing pact with NEC Corp., covering controversial patents for synchronous DRAMs and double data rate (DDR) memories. Rambus said the new agreement also expands its alliance with NEC to include development and marketing of next-generation, 1,066-MHz Direct Rambus DRAMs.

The new pact was reached as Rambus expands its patent fight with several major DRAM manufacturers, which have refused to pay extra royalties for high-speed SDRAM and DDR technologies. On Monday, Rambus announced lawsuits in France and Germany against Micron Technology Inc. and Hyundai Electronics Co. Ltd. The Mountain View company also has asked the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) to block importation of Hyundai SDRAM and DDR memory products in the United States (see Sept. 11 story).

In addition to fighting U.S. lawsuits filed by Micron and Hyundai, Rambus is battling Infineon Technologies AG of Munich, which filed the first suit against the Mountain View company in the patent controversy. Infineon, Micron, and Hyundai all dispute the validity of Rambus' patent claims for SDRAM, DDR, and controller interfaces to those memories.

But Rambus has signed licensing agreements for those patents with three other Japanese DRAM makers, in addition to NEC. In June, Rambus inked pacts with Hitachi Ltd. and Toshiba Corp., followed one month later by an agreement with Oki Electric Industry Co. Ltd. (see July 28 story).

Rambus officials maintain that the Direct RDRAM architecture is still the best memory format for the marketplace, and they say the company remains focused on establishing it as the leading standard, but managers also promised to enforce patents covering SDRAM devices, including DDR chips. The campaign to collect new royalties for those patents has set off a controversy in the memory market with some suppliers complaining of antitrust practices by Rambus and unfair behavior in negotiations.

But NEC--the second largest chip maker in the world--has decided to toss its weight behind Rambus. In addition to agreeing to pay extra royalties for SDRAM and DDR memory patents, NEC now plans to expand its role in developing the faster next-generation Direct RDRAM products. The Japanese company will work with Rambus to create 1,066-MHz Direct RDRAMs that deliver a 33% frequency improvement over the current 800-MHz Rambus DRAMs.

"NEC was quick to recognize the potential of Rambus as a technology partner, and we've achieved significant successes as a result of our close partnership," said Kanji Sugihara, a U.S.-based manager with NEC Electron Devices, which is the semiconductor unit of NEC. "We expect to see this success continue into other areas such as the PC, workstation and server markets, and the agreement signed with Rambus is another step towards that goal."

In announcing the new pact with NEC on Tuesday evening, Rambus said the 1,066-MHz licensing agreement extends to PC applications as well as consumer products. Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. earlier signed a similar deal granting it rights to 1,066-MHz (1.06-GHz) Direct RDRAM development aimed at consumer electronic products.

It wasn't immediately known if the agreement includes the new DRAM development and marketing joint venture, known as NEC Hitachi Memory Inc., that NEC is planning to launch Jan. 1, with Hitachi Ltd. However, since both partners have signed licensing pacts with Rambus, the joint venture could be a candidate to come to terms with Rambus on the synchronous patents, according to observers.

Separately, Rambus said today that a number of Japanese consumer products manufacturers have begun using RDRAM memories in new high-definition television (HDTV) and digital satellite set-top boxes, which are being shipped in time for the broadcasts of the Olympic Games from Sydney, Australia. In these systems, one to two RDRAMs are used to handle 1.6 gigabyte-per-second memory bandwidth for high-speed data transfer in the set-top boxes and TV sets.

Panasonic--a subsidiary of Matsushita Electric Industrial Co.--has started shipping several models of HDTVs and high-definition digital satellite broadcast set-top boxes using a advanced MPEG2 decoder developed by Matsushita and Rambus 128-Mbit RDRAM for high speed decoding memory. Sony Corp. has announced a set-top box for high definition digital satellite broadcast. These systems use a MPEG2 decoder, jointly developed with NEC, and a 128-Mbit RDRAM chip to achieve 1.6-Gbyte/sec. data rate for high quality digital imaging, according to Rambus.

--Reporting provided by Jack Robertson of EBN and J. Robert Lineback of SBN.