GF sues TSMC tries to ban imports, Resolved with 10 Year Cross-License agreement.

S

Sxotty

Legend
Wow crazy eh? They did not include their old partner AMD in the suit though, mais oui. Anyway, it will be interesting to see where it goes.

https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1335070#


GlobalFoundries filed 25 lawsuits in the U.S. and Germany against 20 major companies alleging patent infringement of 16 of its semiconductor device and manufacturing technologies used by TSMC.

GF seeks orders that will prevent semiconductors made by TSMC from being imported into the U.S. and Germany. The lawsuits require GF to name customers of TSMC who import products that incorporate the allegedly infringing technology. GF is also seeking damages from TSMC for patent infringement. Defendants named in the cases include Apple, Asus, Broadcom, Cisco, Google, HiSense, Lenovo, Mediatek, Motorola, Nvidia, Qualcomm and Xilinx.
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Does AMD have a cross patent-license agreement with GF?
 
I don't know, but if the lawsuit is as simple as implied, I hope they lose quickly and have to pay damages to TSMC.


GF’s infringement claims appear to be very common and generic, like “semiconductor device with transistor local interconnects,” according to Mike Demler. a senior analyst with The Linley Group.

“It’s almost impossible to support a patent for something as basic as building a transistor, since everybody pretty much does it the same way,” Demler says. “They might mix the recipe a bit, but if it’s obvious to ‘one skilled in the art’, it’s hard to claim uniqueness. It’s just another waste of money that will mostly go to the lawyers,” he said.
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Click Bait Title

Title suggests that only Nvidia is being sued or getting banned.

MODS please change title to reflect the actual suit.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/1479...gement-apple-qualcomm-others-named-defendants

GlobalFoundries has filed a lawsuit against TSMC and its clients in the USA and Germany alleging the world’s largest contract maker of semiconductors of infringing 16 of its patents. Among the defendants, GlobalFoundries named numerous fabless developers of chips, including Apple, NVIDIA, Qualcomm, and many others.

Here is TSMC's response:

https://www.anandtech.com/show/1480...t-by-globalfoundries-allegations-are-baseless
 
I actually included that in the quote except it includes many more than the short list you included. Nvidia is the graphics card company though and this is theoretically a graphics site so that seemed the most relevant from the list. Is there some reason that upsets you? The EE times piece already has tsmc response. The suit seems bogus to me. It certainly seems GF is choosing to sue strategically to hamper companies who are not their customers and are unlikely to be in near future. That also makes sense I. E. Is logical, though sort of nefarious.
 
Sxotty said:
I actually included that in the quote except it includes many more than the short list you included. Nvidia is the graphics card company though and this is theoretically a graphics site so that seemed the most relevant from the list. Is there some reason that upsets you? The EE times piece already has tsmc response. The suit seems bogus to me. It certainly seems GF is choosing to sue strategically to hamper companies who are not their customers and are unlikely to be in near future. That also makes sense I. E. Is logical, though sort of nefarious.
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Apple and Qualcomm have graphics in their processors yet Apple and Qualcomm are not in the title only Nvidia.

I think Apple and Qualcomm would take offense to be considered as "Others" and second fiddle to Nvidia.

Also the suit is more about processors than graphics.
 
And several of those other companies have many discussion threads here.
 
A1xLLcqAgt0qc2RyMz0y said:
Apple and Qualcomm have graphics in their processors yet Apple and Qualcomm are not in the title only Nvidia.

I think Apple and Qualcomm would take offense to be considered as "Others" and second fiddle to Nvidia.

Also the suit is more about processors than graphics.
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Like I said. Graphics card company. Nvidia wants to be more, but their arm efforts have not gone great. Intel says they will but as of now AMD and Nvidia are the graphics card companies to me. Other groups do graphics of course, but that is why I said card. If it offends you or them, sorry. I personally don't care about apple at all and Qualcomm very little. Thus to me they are irrelevant. I purchased many AMD products, I will not pay the premium for Apple products and Qualcomm is incidental.. Products I buy have Qualcomm stuff inside but I don't care if they do. I specifically purchase AMD and Nvidia products so they are relevant to me and AMD has a relationship to GF. If you remain confused about my choice of companies to mention I do not know that further explanation will help.

The suit seems to be about tsmc being more competitive than GF. GF seems upset about that. Naming tsmc customers does potentially give GF an edge. Even if the suit is without merit there is a possibility that GF can win, thus there is a risk for customers of tsmc. If
GF won't sue their customers then it would reduce that risk by sending some orders to GF. Of course that introduces a new risk and definite cost.
 
Brit, the original article I read said that other GF customers who were also at Tsmc were not listed in suit. That implies that even if AMD has a license that is not the determining factor. They are also smaller though so it is possible that they only picked the big dogs except AMD because of prior license agreement.. Does anyone know if any of the companies in the suit are also GF customers?
 
Sxotty said:
I don't know, but if the lawsuit is as simple as implied, I hope they lose quickly and have to pay damages to TSMC.
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Don't be like that analyst, just read the patent. Even though patent lawyers like to pretend otherwise, they are not just a context-less string of claims. For the moment by law they have to provide the background and brief description of the patent.

The one he mentioned is a patent on using one of the semiconductor layers to connect transistors, for instance inside a standard cell, rather than using a metal layer. Doesn't sound like something novel in 2011, but even advanced industries can fall into really poor habits so who knows.
Sxotty said:
The suit seems to be about tsmc being more competitive than GF.
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Yes, so? That means they have less to lose from TSMC's counter-suit and any essential patents they have become more important for licensing revenue than productivity.

Companies which lose at the marketplace competition have more incentive to sue, but they do not necessarily have invalid patents.
 
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TSMC files a countersuit against GlobalFoundries claiming patent infringement
At the time, TSMC did state that it was prepared to defend itself and now, we are seeing the beginning of that effort, with TSMC filing its own lawsuit against GlobalFoundries in three different countries, alleging infringement on 25 patents.

TSMC’s lawsuit has been filed in the US, Germany and Singapore, claiming that GlobalFoundries is infringing on a long list of patents with its 40nm, 28nm, 14nm and 12nm chips. In the complaint, TSMC is also seeking injunctions against GlobalFoundries to stop sales of infringing products and an extra wad of cash for damages caused by the alleged infringement.

The 25 patents listed in this case relate to FinFET designs, shallow tench isolation techniques, double patterning methods, advanced seal rings, gate structures and a contact etch stop layer design.
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https://www.kitguru.net/channel/generaltech/matthew-wilson/tsmc-files-a-countersuit-against-globalfoundries-claiming-patent-infringement/
 
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The lawyers will have a field day. Strange part is if this goes to a jury trial it is basically a crap shoot how it comes out.
 
There was enough there to work out a long term cross-license agreement. If it was "hot air and no substance" Nvidia would not have agreed to that.
 
BRiT said:
There was enough there to work out a long term cross-license agreement. If it was "hot air and no substance" Nvidia would not have agreed to that.
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This was never about Nvidia. The dispute was between GF and TSMC.

Nowhere in the above linked article was there any statement or even a quote from Nvidia.

"TSMC and GLOBALFOUNDRIES (GF) today announced they are dismissing all litigation between them as well as those that involve any of their customers. The companies have agreed to a broad life-of-patents cross-license to each other’s worldwide existing semiconductor patents as well as those patents that will be filed during the next ten years as both companies continue to invest significantly in semiconductor research and development.
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The companies have agreed means GF and TSMC as the companies not the clients that include Nvidia, AMD, and Apple.
 
Malo said:
Clickbait title strikes again influencing the context of the story? :)
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Yes I agree. The original title of this thread "GF sues TSMC tries to ban imports of Nvidia products" was pure Clickbait and biased.

The title modification to include "and others" lessened it slightly but keeping Nvidia while not stating Apple and Qualcomm directly but as "others" still kept the bias.
 
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