Rambus Inc., one of the world's premier technology licensing companies, today announced that the International Trade Commission (ITC) issued its notice of final determination in the action brought by Rambus against NVIDIA Corporation and other Respondents. In its notice, the ITC has affirmed the findings of the Administrative Law Judge (ALJ), with certain modifications. The final determination, including such modifications, has yet to be released.

On November 6, 2008, Rambus filed a complaint with the ITC requesting an investigation pertaining to certain NVIDIA products. The complaint sought an exclusion order barring the importation, sale for importation, and sale after importation of products that infringe nine of Rambus' patents. The accused products include graphics processors, application processors, media and communications processors, and chip sets which incorporate infringing memory controllers. The complaint named NVIDIA as a proposed Respondent, as well as companies whose products incorporate the accused NVIDIA products and are imported into the United States. These Respondents include: Asustek Computer Inc. and Asus Computer International, BFG Technologies, Biostar Microtech and Biostar Microtech International Corp., Diablotek Inc., EVGA Corp., G.B.T. Inc. and Giga-Byte Technology Co., Hewlett-Packard, MSI Computer Corp. and Micro-Star International Co., Palit Multimedia Inc. and Palit Microsystems Ltd., Pine Technology (Macao Commercial Offshore) Ltd., and Sparkle Computer Co. Four of the asserted patents were later withdrawn from the investigation.

Rambus Inc., one of the world's premier technology licensing companies, today announced that the Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) for its U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) action against NVIDIA Corp. and other respondents issued an Initial Determination finding them in violation of Section 337 of the Tariff Act of 1930. The ALJ determined that three of Rambus' five asserted patents are valid, enforceable, and infringed by the respondents. The ALJ also determined that there was no violation of Section 337 of the Tariff Act of 1930 for the remaining two asserted patents. The action is Investigation Number 337-TA-661.

Any of the parties may request the ITC's full Commission to review the ALJ's Initial Determination. If the Commission grants a petition for review, it may affirm, modify, reverse, set aside, or remand all or part of the ALJ's decision in developing the ITC's final determination.

Rambus Inc., one of the world's premier technology licensing companies specializing in high-speed memory architectures, today announced that Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. will offer a 1 Gigabit XDR DRAM memory device. XDR DRAM is a key component of Rambus' award-winning XDR memory architecture. Samsung's 1Gb XDR DRAM device will broaden the availability of XDR technology for gaming, computing and consumer electronics applications.

"Samsung's market leadership means system manufacturers can be assured of a reliable supply of our XDR DRAM," said Sharon Holt, senior vice president of Licensing and Marketing at Rambus. "With XDR memory's world-leading bandwidth performance, designers can meet their system requirements with fewer devices and greater power efficiency."

Rambus Inc., one of the world's premier technology licensing companies specializing in high-speed memory architectures, and Kingston Technology, the independent world leader in memory products, today announced a collaborative development of a threaded module prototype using DDR3 DRAM technology. Initial silicon results show an improvement in data throughput of up to 50 percent, while reducing power consumption by 20 percent compared to conventional modules.

As demand grows for throughput-intensive computing in notebooks, desktops and servers, the performance requirements on DRAM memory subsystems rises dramatically. As a result, multi-core computing requires more bandwidth and higher rates of random access from DRAM memory.

NVIDIA announces that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has initially rejected an additional eight claims challenged by NVIDIA in two patents that Rambus has asserted against it in litigation. This follows the USPTO's rejection last month of 41 other claims in seven patents that Rambus had asserted against NVIDIA.

NVIDIA has compiled a 100 percent success rate at the USPTO in challenges to the claims in the patents asserted against it by Rambus in an International Trade Commission (ITC) action filed in November 2008.

Rambus Inc., one of the world's premier technology licensing companies specializing in high-speed memory architectures, today showcased a silicon demonstration of a complete XDR memory system running at data rates up to 7.2Gbps with superior power efficiency. This silicon demonstration consists of Elpida's recently-announced 1Gb XDR DRAM device and an XIO memory controller transmitting realistic data patterns. The XIO memory controller is up to 3.5 times more power efficient than a GDDR5 controller, and the total memory system can provide up to two times more bandwidth than GDDR5 at equivalent power. In addition, the XIO memory controller demonstrated bi-modal operation with support for both XDR DRAM as well as next-generation XDR2 DRAM.

"Future graphics and multi-core processors require significantly higher memory performance under extremely challenging power and thermal constraints," said Martin Scott, senior vice president of Research and Technology Development at Rambus. "This technology demonstration highlights the outstanding power efficiency of the XDR and XDR2 memory architectures at performance levels from 3.2 to 7.2Gbps with scalability to well over 10Gbps."

Rambus Inc., one of the world's premier technology licensing companies specializing in high-speed memory architectures, today unveiled a set of innovations that can advance computing main memory beyond current DDR3 data rate limits to 3200Mbps. These innovations, available for licensing, build on Rambus' award-winning designs and include patented and patent pending technologies. Through this collection of innovations, designers can achieve higher memory data rates, higher effective throughput, better power efficiency and the increased capacity necessary for future computing applications.

"Product advancements in multi-core computing, virtualization and chip integration put ever-increasing demands on the memory sub-system, a key performance limiter in today's performance computing systems," said Craig Hampel, Rambus Fellow. "This collection of breakthrough innovations from Rambus allows for memory systems that are better suited for the bandwidth and workloads of these throughput-oriented multi-core processors, increasing the design and solution space for future main memory to enable a new generation of computing platforms."

Rambus Inc., one of the world's premier technology licensing companies specializing in high-speed memory architectures, today announced it has acquired a number of patents from Inapac Technology, Inc. to broaden its offerings for the mobile memory market. These patented innovations complement the high-bandwidth, low-power memory technologies developed by Rambus as part of its Mobile Memory Initiative, announced earlier this year. Specific terms of the deal are not disclosed.
These newly acquired patented innovations are key enablers for achieving high manufacturing yields in System-in-Package (SiP) implementations. SiP consists of a number of stacked integrated circuits (IC) - such as a media processor, DRAM, and Flash memory device - enclosed in a single package or module. This technology allows designers to achieve high functionality in a very compact space, ideal for mobile products such as mobile phones and mobile gaming devices. Given its performance characteristics, SiP has applicability in computing and consumer electronics products as well.

Rambus today announced that it has agreed in principle to terms for a compulsory license with Hynix Semiconductor (000660.KS) for SDR SDRAM and DDR SDRAM memory products. The parties have agreed to royalty rates of 1% for SDR SDRAM and 4.25% for DDR SDRAM memory devices for net sales after January 31, 2009 and before April 18, 2010. The latter rate applies to DDR, DDR2, DDR3, GDDR, GDDR2 and GDDR3 SDRAM devices, as well as DDR SGRAM devices. In addition, a proposed final judgment of $349M in damages, plus pre-judgment interest of approximately $48M has been submitted to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The final amount of pre-judgment interest depends on the date final judgment is entered. Damages and royalty rates are limited to U.S. infringements.

Rambus Inc., one of the world's premier technology licensing companies specializing in high-speed memory architectures, today announced that the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California has granted its request for supplemental damages following an earlier jury verdict finding nine Rambus patents valid and infringed by Hynix SDRAM products. According to the order, Hynix is to pay Rambus royalties of 1% for SDR SDRAM products and 4.25% for DDR SDRAM products made, used, or sold in the United States after December 31, 2005. DDR SDRAM products include DDR SDRAM, DDR2 SDRAM, DDR3 SDRAM, GDDR SDRAM, GDDR2 SDRAM, GDDR3 SDRAM, and DDR SGRAM. These supplemental damages are in addition to those previously awarded in the amount of $133M for Hynix's infringement through December 31, 2005.

Rambus Inc., one of the world's premier technology licensing companies specializing in high-speed memory architectures, today announces the implementation of its award-winning XDR memory architecture using an ultra low-cost LQFP package. In a paper to be presented at DesignCon, Rambus will discuss the benefits of differential signaling delivering high memory bandwidth in a cost-effective package, ideal for consumer electronics such as set-top boxes and HDTVs.

"Today's consumer electronics require high bandwidth and low-cost manufacturability," said Martin Scott, senior vice president of Research and Technology Development at Rambus. "Our team has demonstrated that the superior signal integrity of the XDR memory architecture, which enables the highest data rates of any DRAM technology, also makes possible high-speed operation in very low-cost device packaging."

Rambus Inc., one of the world's premier technology licensing companies specializing in high-speed memory architectures, today announced that, at its request, the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) has instituted an investigation regarding infringement of Rambus' patents by NVIDIA Corporation and other companies whose products incorporate the accused NVIDIA products.

In its complaint, Rambus has alleged infringement of nine Rambus patents. The accused products include NVIDIA products that incorporate DDR, DDR2, DDR3, LPDDR, GDDR, GDDR2, and GDDR3 memory controllers, including graphics processors, and media and communications processors.

The Investigation Number for this matter is 337-TA-661. A hearing date has not yet been set. The public record for this investigation may be viewed at edis.usitc.gov.

NVIDIA today responded on the Rambus accusation made last Friday. It's not a lot of information, but it's enough to tell that NVIDIA is confident of what it is doing and its partners are to be afraid of nothing.

NVIDIA has hosted a meeting with their AIC partners today to keep them updated about the Rambus issue. VR-Zone has learned that NVIDIA continues to deny all allegations brought forward by Rambus as they believe everything is legal so far and will co-operate fully with ITC. NVIDIA stressed that their customers will not be affected by this allegation. Also they mentioned that this case will likely to drag for the next 12-18 months.

Rambus Inc., one of the world's premier technology licensing companies specializing in high-speed memory architectures, today announced it has filed a complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) requesting the commencement of an investigation pertaining to NVIDIA products. The complaint seeks an exclusion order barring the importation, sale for importation, or sale after importation of products that infringe nine Rambus patents from the Ware and Barth families of patents. The accused products include NVIDIA products that incorporate DDR, DDR2, DDR3, LPDDR, GDDR, GDDR2, and GDDR3 memory controllers, including graphics processors, and media and communications processors.

Rambus Inc., one of the world's premier technology licensing companies specializing in high-speed memory architectures, today announced it has filed suit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California against NVIDIA Corporation for patent infringement.

Rambus, one of the world's premier technology licensing companies specializing in high-speed memory architectures, today announced that it has signed an agreement for DDR engineering services and a memorandum of understanding for future development of MirrorBit Flash memory solutions with Spansion, the world's largest pure-play provider of Flash memory solutions.

Rambus Inc., one of the world's premier technology licensing companies specializing in high-speed memory architectures, today announced that Toshiba Corporation has licensed its XDRTM memory controller interface cell (XIO) and XDR memory controller (XMC) for next-generation high-definition television (HDTV) chipsets. The XIO and XMC will be implemented in Toshiba's 65nm process. Operating at 4.8Gbps, the XDR memory architecture will allow Toshiba's HDTV chipset to deliver state-of-the-art image processing performance in its customers' HDTVs.

Rambus Inc. plans to announce this Wednesday a new memory signaling technology initiative targeted at delivering a Terabyte-per-second of memory bandwidth, which the company touts as a solution for next-generation multi-core, game and graphics applications. Rather than simply increasing the clock speed of memory to achieve higher output, Rambus looks to boost bandwidth with a 32X data rate. Just as DDR memory technologies doubles transfer on a single, full clock signal cycle, Rambus' proposed technology is able to data at 32 times the reference clock frequency. With 32X technology, the memory company is targeting a bandwidth of 16Gbps per DQ link with memory running at 500MHz. In contrast, today's DDR3 at 500MHz achieves a bandwidth of 1Gbps. The terabyte bandwidth memory method is slated for year 2011. Rambus has also recently received early silicon capable of demonstrating its technology. The early test rig uses emulated DRAM chips, connected to a Rambus memory controller at a 32X data rate capable of 64Gbps. Rambus will show it this Wednesday at the Rambus Developer Forum in Tokyo, Japan.

Rambus Inc., one of the world's premier technology licensing companies specializing in high-speed memory architectures, has signed a memorandum of understanding with Intel to explore possible uses for Rambus' family of XDR memory solutions. Rambus plans to dedicate certain technology and design resources to the effort and the evaluation will be done on Intel's silicon process technology. The Company stressed that Intel was only evaluating the technology for possible future uses and has no specific product plans for the XDR memory technology at this time. The XDR memory architecture features key enabling technologies built on patented Rambus innovations that include low-voltage, low-power Differential Rambus Signaling Level (DRSL); FlexPhase circuit technology for precise on-chip alignment of data with clock; and Dynamic-Point-to-Point (DPP) for scalable point-to-point signaling on the data bus.

Rambus Inc., one of the world's premier technology licensing companies specializing in high-speed memory architectures, today announced the introduction of its memory controller interface solution for industry-standard DDR3 DRAM. The fully integrated hard macro cell provides the physical layer (PHY) interface between the controller logic and DDR3 or DDR2 DRAM devices for data rates of up to 1600MHz.

Rambus will demonstrate its most recent implementation in the PLAYSTATION 3 computer entertainment system, the XDR memory architecture at this year's DesignCon 2007. Rambus demos, displays and presentations include: XDR memory architecture with data rates ranging from 3.2-8.0GHz, FlexIO&trade' processor bus offering data rates of 400 MHz to 8.0GHz, DDR technology performing memory transactions to and from a DDR2 device operating at 800Mbps (400MHz clock), Rambus Gen2 solution compliant with PCI Express base specification and LabStation bring-up debug and characterization tool. For additional information, please visit the DesignCon 2007 page.

Rambus Inc., one of the world's premier technology licensing companies specializing in high-speed chip interfaces and Spansion Inc., the world's largest pure-play provider of Flash memory solutions, announced today that they have signed a patent license agreement. This five-year, royalty-based agreement grants Spansion a license to a broad range of Rambus patents. Rambus management does not expect revenue generated from this license agreement to be material. Specific terms of the agreement are confidential.

Rambus Inc. has signed a deal with Qimonda AG, a leading global producer of DRAM memory products, for producing Rambus XDR memory devices. The Rambus XDR solution will be implemented in Qimonda's 75nm process technology for integration into high-volume applications, including game consoles such as Sony Play Station 3, digital televisions, set-top boxes and PC graphics.
Rambus XDR DRAM, as part of the XDR memory architecture, achieves an order of magnitude higher performance than today's standard memories. Perfect for graphics processing, consumer electronics, network, and server applications, a single, 2-byte wide, 3.2 GHz XDR DRAM component provides 6.4 GB/sec of peak bandwidth, and enables PCB savings and cost savings by utilizing the fewest number of ICs.