TAIPEI, Taiwan — Infineon Technologies AG and ProMOS Technologies Inc. have finally buried the hatchet over a licensing disagreement that will see the Taiwanese memory maker pay Infineon licensing fees of $156 million over the next 17 months.
That will allow ProMOS to make chips using Infineon technology at the 0.17-, 0.14- and 0.11-micron nodes. After that, it will turn to Korean DRAM maker Hynix Semiconductor Inc., with whom it has forged a partnership that covers technology licensing, foundry services and collaboration on process technology.
In late 2002, Infineon Technologies said it would break off all dealings with ProMOS, which it ran as a joint venture with Mosel-Vitelic, Inc. Business disagreements between the two led to the bitter break-up.
At the time, Infineon had said it would not transfer any more technology to the venture beyond .11 micron, and had also hinted that it may not even go that far if it could find a way to extract itself from an existing technology agreement.
The deal announced Wednesday (Nov. 10) indicates it could not.
In a joint statement, the companies agreed to withdraw claims, including litigation and arbitration, levied against each other during the aftermath. ProMOS will deduct $36 million from the total payment to settle accounts for DRAM that Infineon bought.
Currently, ProMOS runs one 200-mm wafer fab and one 300-mm wafer fab. It is building another 300-mm fab valued at $1.6 billion.
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