The decade-long litigation between Rambus and the DRAM industry could be coming to an end with the announcement that Samsung is to pay Rambus an up-front $200m plus about $100m a year for five years depending on Samsung sales volume, plus a purchase of $200m of Rambus stock by Samsung which Rambus can buy back after 18 months.
In return Samsung gets a license to Rambus' patent portfolio covering all Samsung ICs including a perpetual fully paid-up license to certain current DRAM products
The deal makes it more likely that Hynix and Micron will also settle with Rambus, putting to an end the series of multiple lawsuits with DRAM manufacturers, embarked upon in 2000, which resulted in varying legal decisions.
In addition, Samsung and Rambus have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) relating to a new generation of memory technologies which brings together Samsung's leadership in memory technologies with Rambus' innovations in high performance memory interfaces. The two companies will initially focus on graphics and mobile memory solutions and will further review a potential collaboration on server and high-speed NAND Flash memories.
Both Samsung and Rambus said they are pleased to resolve their differences and move forward.
"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 latest lawsuit brought against Samsung, Hynix and Micron was due to be heard last week in San Francisco, but was postponed. Samsung will now be dropped from that case but the action continues against Hynix and Micron.