Nvidia Signs Memory License Deal With Rambus

Rambus and Nvidia lsat week announced they have signed a patent license agreement related to certain memory controllers.

Under the agreement, Rambus has granted Nvidia a patent license for certain memory controllers at a 1 percent royalty rate for SDR memory controllers and a 2 percent royalty rate for other memory controllers, including DDR, DDR2, DDR3, LPDDR, LPDDR2, GDDR2, GDDR3, GDDR4, and portions of GDDR5 memory controllers. Nvidia has granted no licenses to Rambus.

The signed patent license agreement went into effect on August 12, 2010. The parties have not signed any releases of liability, nor dismissed any outstanding litigation between them. The terms of the license are per the agreement that Rambus offers as part of its commitment with the European Commission.

In late July, Rambus won the ruling from the U.S. International Trade Commission saying that that Nvidia violated three of five patents held by the memory patent company.

Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam served as Tom's Hardware News Director during 2008-2014. He entered tech media in the late 90s and fondly remembers the days when an overclocked Celeron 300A and Voodoo2 SLI comprised a gaming rig with the ultimate street cred.
  • elel
    So far, I don't think I've come across a single good story about rambus :(
    Reply
  • adamboy64
    Thanks for the article - a good read. I appreciate the effort you've put in here.
    Reply
  • adamboy64
    Oops, pressed the 'submit' button too soon. It seems like this Rambus v Nvidia thing might come to an end.. It seems that Rambus have what they want. Hmm..
    Reply
  • deweycd
    Agreed, Rambus seems to just sit back and reap the rewards of others, kind of like a leach.
    Reply
  • RaZZ3R
    At least RAMBUS doesn't have any issues with AMD/ATI, for now. But you know something in RAMBUS head screams "Go for it" one day, at least not today :)
    Reply
  • Stryter
    p4l1ndr0m3lsat
    law school admission test? ;)
    Reply
  • silentq
    one day the new type of memory will be invented - rambus no more, as they feed of their patterns.
    Reply
  • apache_lives
    rambus can suck a fat one
    Reply
  • ricin
    Correct headline: "nVidia gets owned by Rambus sales team."
    Reply
  • nforce4max
    The ram leaches are at it again. Still got the bad taste of RDRAM and how it botched a whole generation of cpus. They are the reason why the PS3 only got 256mb of system ram while the crummy RSX is Nvidia's fault when they should have used the G71 instead of the older G70.
    Reply