Chip designer Rambus has issued a lawsuit against four chip manufacturers, alleging they have infringed its patents covering memory chip technology.
Hynix Semiconductor, Infineon Technologies, Inotera Memories and Nanya Technology Corporation have been issued with the lawsuit.
Rambus claims the suppliers’ DDR2 memory chips and GDDR2 and GDDR3 graphics memory chips wrongly use its patented inventions.
If Rambus is successful in its legal action, the compensation and royalties paid by the defendants could see the cost passed onto users through prices for memory chip devices.
"With analyst firms projecting a rapid transition this year from DDR to DDR2 and GDDR-based systems, and with strong evidence of infringement of our patents already in the public domain, we have taken this step in filing our first new patent case in the US since August 2000," said John Danforth, senior vice-president and general counsel at Rambus.
Rambus claims that the DRAM manufacturers cited in the lawsuit infringe up to 18 of its patents with DDR2, GDDR2 and GDDR3 devices that are currently on sale.
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