Toshiba to buy patents from Micron for $288 mln
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Toshiba Corp. (6502.T) said on Friday it  would buy certain chip-related patents from Micron Technology  Inc.  and secure licences for all the patents held by  Micron unit Lexar Media Inc. for $288 million, ending lawsuits  between the Japanese electronics maker and Lexar.
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Toshiba Corp. has said that it will sell its entire stake in Japanese label Toshiba EMI Ltd. to Britain's EMI Group Plc, saying that music was no longer relevant for the electronics giant.
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TOKYO: Toshiba said on Thursday it would make programmable microchips for Xilinx from the first quarter of the 2005 calendar year, in a deal seen helping shield the Japanese firm from fluctuations in global demand.
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Toshiba Corp.  said it would buy microprocessors from Advanced Micro Devices Inc. , ending its exclusive ties with Intel Corp.  for the supply of the brains that run computers, and sending its shares higher.
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Intel stays outside the tent Toshiba confirmed yesterday that it had joined a 32-nanometre chip development group led by IBM and made up of a number of key industry players minus top dog Intel.â¦
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Inks deal for ten years of patents Intel has agreed to stump up $250 to Transmeta to settle the patent dispute case between the firms without battling through the courts. Intel will pay its rival $150 in a lump sum, plus an annual license fee of $20m for the next five years.â¦
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(InfoWorld) - The Cell processor sits at the heart of a high-performance computer from IBM and the PlayStation 3,Â and now Toshiba Corp. wants to put that power into mobile devices and cell phones. A roadmap for the processor on display by Toshiba at this week's Ceatec show in Japan shows a more powerful version of the chip under development for 2007. While details of the chip were not available, a source close to Toshiba said that the new device will be manufactured using more advanced 65-nanometer production technology. The current chips are being made on a 90-nanometer line and the switch will mean lower power consumption and increased performance. Looking further ahead the roadmap calls for further increases in power between next year and the end of the decade. At the same time "mid-class" versions of the processor are also envisaged for 2008 and beyond and a mobile version in 2010. The Cell chip is the product of a joint development project by Toshiba, IBM, Sony Corp. and Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. (SCEI). Each chip contains a main processor and eight sub-processors to deliver about 200G Flops (floating point operations per second) of power. It will make its consumer debut next month when SCEI puts the PlayStation 3 on sale in Japan and the U.S. but Toshiba has plans for the chip in other parts of the living room. "As the first application we are focused on the consumer electronics area such as media servers or something like that but Cell itself is not restricted to that area," said Mitsuo Saito, chief fellow at Toshiba's semiconductor company and one of the key creators of the chip, in an interview at Ceatec. "Maybe other partners are going onto the very high-end. We are focusing on the low power area. One is for more mobile types of applications such as small games or some mobile phone-like systems," he said. When the Cell partners disclosed details of the chip in 2004 both Toshiba and Sony said they planned to put the device into consumer electronics products by 2006. Toshiba said its plans have been delayed but remain very much in-place while Sony said it is currently concentrating on getting the Cell into the PlayStation 3 and will look at other uses once the games console is launched. Toshiba's Saito said the three partners are also collaborating on the software side so that Cell-based software won't end up tied to specific versions of the chip. "Also, maybe the most important thing is to have collaboration, he said. "Each type of Cell has to have the same basis of software so for this purpose we are doing a lot of effort to centralize software from the very small Cell to the very large one to have a uniform world. It's our plan to expand to that kind of area. That is a very important aspect so we are collaborating together, three companies, to enhance the Cell world." Â  Additional reporting by Sumner Lemon.
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(InfoWorld) - Toshiba and Micron TechnologyÂ have settled a number of outstanding lawsuits regarding alleged patent infringement and theft of trade secrets related to computer memory chips. Under terms of an agreement announced Friday, Toshiba will purchase some Micron patents related to semiconductor technology and license patents previously owned by Lexar Media, which wasÂ acquired by MicronÂ earlier this year. Toshiba will pay $288 million to Micron in return for the patents and licenses, Toshiba said. The amount is substantially less than the $465 million inÂ compensation awarded to LexarÂ by a California court in 2005. The payment has been on hold since late last year after Toshiba succeeded in having the damages reconsidered andÂ filed an appealÂ seeking to overturn the original guilty verdict. Earlier this year Lexar raised the stakes by asking the U.S. International Trade Commission toÂ bar the importÂ of some of Toshiba's NAND flash-memory chips and products containing them. The ITC action will now be dismissed, along with others at the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California and the California Court of Appeals, Toshiba said. Toshiba became business partners with Lexar when it invested $3 million in the company in 1997 and acquired a seat on its board of directors. According to Lexar's original complaint, Toshiba sat on the board for two and a half years and gained access to the company's product plans and technology, while at the same time working with Lexar rival SanDisk. Â
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Japan's Sony Corp  is in talks to  sell its production facilities for advanced microchips used in  its PlayStation 3 game console to Toshiba Corp ,  sources close to the matter said.
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Sony Corp  said on Wednesday it  will sell its microchip production facilities in western Japan  to Toshiba Corp  for 90 billion yen ($835 million), in  their latest move to focus on their core businesses.
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(InfoWorld) - The investment arm of chip maker Intel said Thursday it agreed to invest $65 million in Powertech Technology, a Taiwanese chip assembler that specializes in flash memory and DRAM (dynamic RAM). Intel Capital said the funds, along with capital from other investors Powertech expects to bring on board, will be used as working capital to support the continued growth of its operations. Intel is an active customer of Powertech, it said in a statement, and led the round of financing for Powertech. The announcement came as no surprise in Taiwan, where Chinese-language media had been reporting such a deal between Intel and Powertech was in the works. The investment is one indication of how competitive the NAND flash memory chip business has become, and the importance of Powertech's services. Intel entered the NAND flash memory fray byÂ partnering with Micron Technology, a deal the two companies announced in late 2005, and started early last year under the name IM Flash Technologies. They entered an already competitive industry that included South Korean heavyweights Samsung ElectronicsÂ and Hynix Semiconductor, as well as NAND flash developer SanDisk. NAND flash chips have become popular thanks to widespread use for song storage in digital music players, including Apple's iPod Shuffle and iPod nano. One bottleneck in NAND flash production is in chip assembly, where companies seal the chips inside protective coverings, the final step in the making of a chip. Powertech specializes in memory chip assembly, including NAND flash memory as well as DDR2 (double data rate, second generation) DRAM chips. The NAND business has hit a few speed bumps recently. The popularity of the chips caused companies to build too many new NAND production lines, causing a glut of chips on the market and sending prices tumbling. SanDisk announced a few weeks ago that it planned to lay off 10 percent of its work force in a bid to remain profitable despite steep price cuts on its chips. The Milpitas, California company said NAND flash memory chip prices have dropped 50 percent in the last two months.
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Toshiba Singapore Pvt Ltd., the South  and East Asia division of Japan's Toshiba Corp. , aims  to become the second-biggest seller of laptop computers in  India by March 2007, a company official said on Wednesday.
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Patriot Scientific and TPL Group, co-holders of the Moore Microprocessor Patent Portfolio [MMPP], announced today that they have settled their suit for patent infringement with JVC, NEC Electronics, Panasonic, and Toshiba.The suit revolved around clocking technology used in most microprocessors since 1994 and attributed to Chuck Moore.The details of the settlement were not revealed, but the patent holders said the settlement includes the licensing of the technology to the defendants [above].After some initial wrangling between Patriot Scientific and TPL back in 2005, both companies joined forces to file suit against microprocessor companies using the technology. The list of companies using MMPP includes every major chip manufacturer in high tech and in consumer electronics."Patriot bought the IP and started looking at everybody?s chips and discovered, lo and behold, almost everybody is using this particular technology," said Nathan Brookwood, principal at Insight 64.Patriot is what is known in the industry as a patent troll, added Brookwood, mainly because it did not create the patent but rather bought the patent and then went out, trolling, to discover who might be in violation of it.Previously, Patriot and TLP settled with AMD, Intel, and Fujitsu among others.Few companies, if any, remain to settle with Patriot and TPL.In a far more significant suit among microprocessor giants, plaintiff AMD's suit for anti-competitive business practices against Intel is currently in the discovery stage with an agreed-upon trial date set for April, 2009.In discovery, the defendant must produce any and all information, including electronically created documents, such as emails, that the court considers relevant to the case.According to a news story in InfoWorld on March 12, 2007 Intel admitted that some "internal e-mails that may be important to the case were missing as a result of errors."Recent court rulings have not looked favorably on companies that cannot produce relevant e-mails.In Zubulake v. UBS Warburg, the judge instructed the jury that it was legitimate to presume that the information Warburg could not provide due to lost backup tapes and e-mails was probably damaging to the company's case. Zubulake was awarded $20 million.Started in 2005, the cast has been slowly dragging its way through the courts.As reported back then in InfoWorld, AMD accused Intel of monopolistic practices in the PC market by coercing customers to use its products rather than AMD's.Among the illegal practices cited by AMD against Intel were a variety of tactics to limit AMD's growth in the market by paying retailers and system OEMs not to sell or build systems with AMD chips.Earlier this year, the European Commission notified Intel that based on its monitoring of Intel?s business practices, the EC believes Intel was in violation of European Union monopoly law.If Intel loses the case, said Brookwood, it would of course have to cease the practices that AMD alleges are over the top for a company with the market share the size of Intel's.More damaging, however, could be the court dollar award if AMD is able to prove it has been economically damaged to the tune of X billions of dollars by Intel practices.AMD also claims that consumers have been damaged for billions of dollars over the past decade. If AMD wins, a class action lawsuit could also be in the offing.
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SHANGHAI, China - Micron Technology Inc., the leading US based memory maker, is planning to build a test and assembly facility in China, according to an Associated Press report Monday (Oct. 18), which cited a company executive in Shanghai as its source.
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Micron Technology Inc., the world&#39;s No. 2 maker of computer-memory chips, struck a deal with the US Justice Department to shield it from sanctions after a probe found some employees engaged in price fixing.
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Sharp and Toshiba plan to closely cooperate in the flat-panel TV business, buying screens and semiconductor chips from each other, they said Friday.Toshiba will turn to Sharp for the 32-inch and larger flat-panel displays used in its LCD (liquid crystal display) televisions while Sharp will procure from Toshiba the chips used in its TVs. The cooperation will begin during the year from April and will slowly build towards 2010 when two goals are expected to be reached: Sharp will supply Toshiba with 40 percent of its LCD modules and Toshiba will sell to Sharp 50 percent of the chips it needs.The deal provides both companies with a steadier supply of vital components for LCD TVs. The market for such televisions has grown from 161 million units in 2003 to an estimated 192 million this year and is expected to keep on rising on the back of strong demand and competition.Some of the display panels headed for Toshiba will come from a state-of-the-art &#165;380 billion (US$3.36 billion) LCD manufacturing plant Sharp is building in Osaka&#39;s Sakai City. Production is scheduled to begin in 2009. The plant will handle mother glass -- the large sheets on which several display panels are made -- of 2.85 meters by 3.05 meters. This size, dubbed 10th generation, is larger than that used by any other display manufacturer and will make the Sakai plant the world&#39;s most advanced LCD production center.The large glass sheets also bring a cost advantage for Sharp. The per-inch price of LCD panels drops with increases in the size of mother glass, so the panels are likely to be more competitive than those from rivals. That&#39;s especially important in the TV market, where strong competition has made price a key to success.Toshiba currently holds a stake in IPS Alpha Technology, an LCD manufacturing joint venture created with Panasonic and Hitachi. The IPS line uses an older 6th-generation technology and will need substantial investment if it is to remain competitive in the market.
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Toshiba on Tuesday underlined the growing determination of Japanese companies to protect their intellectual property rights, announcing legal action in Japan and the US against Hynix of South Korea for alleged infringement of its memory chip patents.