Samsung pays $900 million to settle with Rambus

by Scott Bicheno on 20 January 2010, 11:02

Tags: Samsung (005935.KS), Rambus (NASDAQ:RMBS)

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That'll do nicely

Korean technology giant Samsung has decided the better part of valour is discretion and decided to settle out of court with US, litigation-happy memory interface licensing company Rambus.

The settlement is costing Samsung a grand total of $900 million, which is comprised of a $200 million  upfront payment, quarterly payments of $25 million over the next five years, and the investment of $200 million in Rambus stock. For that it gets the license to use certain Rambus patents.

The two companies have also signed a memorandum of understanding to develop a new generation of memory technologies together. They will initially focus on graphics and mobile memory solutions, but have plans to have a go at and high-speed NAND Flash memories too.

"We have a tremendous opportunity to renew a partnership which has created solutions that have benefited consumers worldwide," said Harold Hughes, president and CEO of Rambus. "Bringing together Samsung's market and technology leadership with our innovations for high-performance and high-efficiency memory architectures will make possible an exciting new generation of mobile, computing and consumer electronics products."

The absence of a corresponding quote from Samsung in the press release suggests its execs are less ecstatic about the settlement.

 



HEXUS Forums :: 4 Comments

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Wow, so many years after the P4, and Rambus still has so much grip on DRAM manufacturers. What is the licence for, and is it an asset they can sit on indefinitely, or like a patent has a duration? And have they been working on anything these days (they do have the reputation of being a team of lawyers at least in the past)?
RAMBUS, wasnt that horrible stuff from years ago?
'[GSV
Trig;1858652']RAMBUS, wasnt that horrible stuff from years ago?

Yes, one of the first pc's in my household had RD ram. It was a gateway P4 1.7Ghz. Iirc the ram was expensive, quite rare and not particularly fast.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rambus

Judging by the above, they seem to spend a lot of time filing lawsuits.
Yeah a hell of a lot of time, so in essence, you ahve one good idea, then look at technology, guess where its logically going to be in 5 years time, patent that idea then sell licences to other people, failing that you sue them…