SMIC countersues TSMC
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(InfoWorld) - China's largest chip maker is seeking damages in U.S. court from rival Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.Â (TSMC) for alleged breach of contract, widening a legal battle with TSMC that erupted last month. Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. (SMIC) accused its larger rival of seeking to discredit it and failing to act in good faith over the terms of an earlier lawsuit settled in 2005. "TSMC...has undertaken a concerted effort since the previous lawsuits to discredit SMIC by making unfair and misleading accusations," SMIC said in a filing to the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong on Wednesday. The chip maker says it has fully complied with the 2005 settlement. Last month, TSMCÂ revived a long running legal battleÂ with SMIC by suing the company for failing to uphold the 2005 agreement, which had ended withÂ SMIC agreeing to pay $175 million. TSMC contends that SMIC broke the agreement by continuing to use its trade secrets. The original suit accused SMIC of hiring former TSMC employees in order to gain access to its trade secrets and technology. TSMC is the world's largest contract chip maker, and has been in business for nearly 20 years. SMIC was established in 2000 by Richard Chang, a veteran of Taiwan's chip industry. TSMC spokesman J.H. Tzeng declined to comment, saying his company is currently reviewing SMIC's complaint.
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The European Union is taking a close look at the company's monopoly on the DRAM chip market.
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A legal battle is shaping up in California involving a Chinese startup that makes equipment used to produce semiconductors.Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment&#160;(AMEC), of Shanghai, was sued in California by Applied Materials, which claims the company misappropriated its trade secrets. But lawyers for the Chinese company asked the judge to dismiss the suit, arguing the U.S. court has no jurisdiction over AMEC&#39;s activities.AMEC&#39;s motion for dismissal will be heard by Judge James Ware of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, on Feb. 11.Applied&#39;s lawsuit, filed in October and amended last month, claims AMEC used its trade secrets to develop etch and CVD (Chemical Vapor Deposit) tools that are used to make chips. AMEC&#39;s tools will compete against similar products from Applied, which cost millions of dollars each. Applied is seeking an injunction from the court to prevent the misappropriation of its trade secrets and wants punitive damages as well as a declaration that it owns patent applications recently filed by AMEC.Applied identified four former employees in the suit, including AMEC founders Gerald Yin and Aihua Chen.Applied&#39;s amended complaint describes Yin, who left Applied in 2004 to start AMEC, as a former corporate vice president and chief technology officer who &quot;managed the etch product group and had broad access to Applied confidential information and trade secrets concerning its etch tools.&quot; In addition, the complaint says Chen at one point served as general manager of Applied&#39;s CVD product group and had access to proprietary technology related to those tools.To bolster its case against AMEC, Applied noted that the former employees identified in the lawsuit signed agreements that give Applied all rights to inventions made during their employment, and prevent them from using Applied&#39;s confidential information for anyone else&#39;s benefit. Under the agreement, any patents filed by the former employees within one year of leaving Applied are &quot;presumed to have been conceived or made during their employment with Applied and would belong to Applied.&quot;As a result, Applied&#39;s complaint lays claim to two AMEC patent applications filed in China on August 5, 2005, that name Yin and other former Applied employees as inventors. These patents should belong to Applied as the patent applications were made &quot;one year and three days after Yin left applied&quot; and therefore must be based on information that Yin disclosed to AMEC during the one year period, the complaint said.AMEC subsequently filed patent claims in Japan and the U.S. based on the Chinese patent applications. Applied&#39;s complaint also claims these patent applications as its own, noting Applied filed its own patent applications covering the same technologies.In response, AMEC&#39;s motion to dismiss argues that the U.S. court has no jurisdiction over the Chinese company.&quot;In this case, there is no jurisdiction over AMEC Inc., because the allegations of the (amended complaint) relate exclusively to actions that took place in China. None of Applied&#39;s claims arises out of allegations concerning contact with California,&quot; the motion said, adding any legal action by Applied against AMEC should be heard in a Chinese court instead.
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(InfoWorld) - Sun Microsystems and Unisys have jointly filed a lawsuit against several major computer memory chip makers seeking compensation for alleged price fixing. The two computer makers individually filed lawsuits against the companies earlier this year but have now brought the cases together in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, according to a Friday court filing. The complaint names South Korea's Hynix Semiconductor, Infineon Technologies of Germany, Japan's Elpida Memory and Mitsubishi Electric, Taiwan's Mosel Vitelic and Nanya Technology, and U.S. and European units of some of the companies. The lawsuit is one of several filed against DRAM makers after the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) began an investigation into price fixing in 2002. That has already seen a number of guilty pleas by companies and executives and fines have been levied against some DRAM makers. Last year Samsung ElectronicsÂ wasÂ ordered to pay a $300 million criminal fineÂ and HynixÂ agreed to pay $185 million. InfineonÂ paid $160 million,Â and Japan's Elpida agreed toÂ pay a $84 million fine.
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The United States will appeal a World Trade Organization ruling against steep countervailing duties it has imposed on semiconductors made by the South Korean company Hynix, a US trade official said on Tuesday.
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Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. (SMIC) said Wednesday it will defend itself against the latest allegations of patent infringement and trade secret misappropriation
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OLYMPIC DAM, South Australia (Dow Jones)--WMC Resources Ltd. (WMR.AU) is pinning its defense from aA$7.4 billion takeover bid by Xstrata PLC (XTA.
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International Business Machines  Corp. has requested documents from Intel Corp., the world's  largest chip maker, as it prepares its defense in a  billion-dollar dispute with SCO Group Inc. over the Linux  operating system.
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Twenty-one Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) employees were taken to the hospital on Wednesday because of a gas leak at a chip fabrication plant in Hsinchu, Taiwan, a company spokesman said. The leaked gas was arsine, a highly toxic and flammable gas that is used exclusively in semiconductor manufacturing. The gas leak occurred inside TSMC's Fab 7, a fab that produces chips using 200-millimeter silicon wafers. The gas leak did not require TSMC to halt operations at Fab 7 and the facility is operating normally, according to the company spokesman. The 21 TSMC employees are expected to be released from the hospital by the end of the day.
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TAIPEI - Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (TSMC), the world's largest contract chip maker, has teamed up with Freescale Semiconductor Inc. to jointly develop SOI (silicon-on-insulator) technology for chips made using a 65-nanometer (nm) process, the companies said in a statement Tuesday.
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The chipmaker seems in denial about carrying too much inventory.
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The U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC)&#160;said it will investigate whether Qualcomm is complying with a ban that prohibits it from importing certain chips into the U.S.The investigation is the result of a complaint that Broadcom filed with the U.S. ITC. Qualcomm is importing chips that employ a work-around of a Broadcom patent that the court ruled Qualcomm infringes. Broadcom alleges that the new technology also infringes its patent.The investigation is the latest chapter in a long-running dispute between the two chip companies. In July, the ITC ruled that Qualcomm was infringing on Broadcom patents. In a very rare decision,&#160;the ITC forbade the import of phones that included future versions of certain Qualcomm chips rather than all the offending chips because the commission decided that would have unduly damaged the economy.However,&#160;the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has since stayed that ruling.One attorney suspects that Broadcom&#39;s most recent complaint to the ITC is an effort to essentially overrule the appeals&#39; court stay.&quot;This enforcement proceeding represents a crafty way for Broadcom to get around the court&#39;s stay and go directly to the ITC to give some teeth to the remedy provided by the ITC,&quot; said Lyle Vander Schaaf, an attorney at Bryan Cave and a former ITC attorney.If the commission decides in Broadcom&#39;s favor, Qualcomm could face millions of dollars in penalties, he said.Broadcom said it is seeking fines and additional orders against Qualcomm.
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InfoWorld - Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. (SMIC), China's largest chip maker, has signed a deal to license a 45-nanometer (nm) manufacturing process from IBM, the company said Wednesday.
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Global computer memory chip  makers including Samsung Electronics Co. and Micron Technology  Inc. were sued on Thursday by New York Attorney General Eliot  Spitzer for allegedly conspiring to raise memory chip prices.
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Chip injunctions force the company to alter its plans.
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Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing (Nasdaq:CHRT)(SGX-ST:Chartered),  one of the world's top dedicated foundries,  today announced the extension of its joint development efforts with IBM  to include 32-nanometer (nm) bulk complementary metal oxide  semiconductor (CMOS) technology.
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TOKYO : Japanese electronics giant Toshiba said it was taking legal action against major South Korean microchip maker Hynix in Tokyo and Texas for alleged infringement of Toshiba&#39;s semiconductor memory patents.