14 DAY TRIAL // It seems that, when it's not suing companies left and right, Rambus actually does come up with technologies that IT players want to use, as proven by Toshiba, who just signed a five-year agreement with it.
No doubt that, in most cases, if an end-users know the name Rambus it is because of the many lawsuits it was involved in over the years, along with the legal action it is still involved in.
One of the most notable such actions is the one against NVIDIA, although there were definitely some more that got it settlement payments in the millions of dollars.
One might even say that a large part of Rambus' profits over the years came form all the cases it won, or those that were settled out of court but still with payments to it.
Meanwhile, the licensing firm has actually been working on various patents and technologies, some of which were licensed by companies form around the world.
The most recent in this string of deals was signed by Toshiba, as revealed by a recent press release.
The deal will give Toshiba Corporation the right to include DRAM memory controllers for SDR, DDR, DDR2 and DDR3 memory in its devices for the next five years.
“Toshiba is a recognized leader of the global semiconductor industry, committed to providing its customers with state-of-the-art solutions,” said Sharon Holt, senior vice president and general manager of the Semiconductor Business Group at Rambus.
“We are very pleased to continue our long and valuable relationship with Toshiba, who soon after our founding became Rambus’ first licensee.”
If one were to be more precise, this is actually a renewed agreement between the two parties and, besides the list above, includes other DRAM devices as well. Just how high a sum Rambus will get (royalty payments) will depend on how many memory controllers actually get shipped.