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News Burst: Infineon to fight Rambus on chip patents

Matthew Broersma ZDNet.co.uk

Published: 15 Aug 2000 13:42 BST

Infineon has said it will fight a patent infringement lawsuit filed last week against the chip manufacturer by Rambus, a US-based chip designer.

According to reports, Infineon, formerly Siemens Semiconductors, is still in negotiations with Rambus over its right to manufacture the standard memory chips (Synchronous Dynamic RAMs, or SDRAMs) used in PCs. Rambus has filed a string of lawsuits against chip makers, claiming it owns some of the basic technology behind SDRAM.

Infineon may also file its own lawsuit against Rambus, reports said. Infineon has not confirmed it will go to court.

Rambus has been accused of illegally patenting SDRAM information it gained by attending the conferences where SDRAM's specifications were originally arrived at.

More details to follow.

See Chips Central for daily hardware news, including an interactive timeline of AMD and Intel's upcoming product launches.

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