Key facts
- Samsung Electronics and Netlist have entered into a five-year patent license agreement.
- The deal settles all pending legal disputes between the two companies.
- Samsung will gain access to Netlist's patents for server memory and high-bandwidth memory technologies.
- Samsung will supply Netlist with DRAM and NAND flash memory.
- Samsung will also purchase 10 million Netlist shares as part of the agreement.
- The settlement follows a U.S. trade investigation into Samsung memory chips initiated by Netlist.
- Netlist had previously won significant damages against Samsung in patent infringement lawsuits.
Samsung Electronics has unveiled its zHBM concept, a next-generation memory architecture designed to significantly boost artificial intelligence (AI) computing performance, aiming for approximately eight times the performance of HBM5 and over 10 times the memory density through vertical stacking. This development comes as Samsung has also entered into a five-year patent license agreement with Netlist, settling years of legal disputes. Under the deal, Samsung gains access to Netlist's memory chip patents, including those for server and high-bandwidth memory technologies, and will supply Netlist with DRAM and NAND flash memory. Samsung will also purchase 10 million Netlist shares. The agreement follows a U.S. trade investigation into Samsung memory chips initiated by Netlist, which had previously won substantial damages against Samsung in patent infringement lawsuits. The probe covered products from companies like Google, Nvidia, Broadcom, and Super Micro Computer that utilize Samsung memory chips. Meanwhile, SK Hynix is reportedly evaluating Chinese chipmaking tools amid U.S. export control risks, though Samsung denies testing such tools. Samsung also recently revealed its BV-NAND prototype featuring over 400 layers.