Stefan Mileschin

Long term court rivals Rambus and Freescale appear to be getting close after announcing that Freescale will get access to Rambus' patents for memory controllers and serial links.

Additionally, the expanded agreement provides Freescale with the ability to collaborate on Rambus' resistive memory technology for embedded applications (eRRAM).

Kevin Donnelly, senior vice president and general manager of the Memory and Interface Division at Rambus said that the agreement with Freescale exemplifies the company's ability to provide additional value to Freescale with eRRAM technology.

David Kramer, director, Freescale Discovery Labs, Freescale Semiconductor said that Rambus' resistive memory eRRAM technology was useful for non-volatile memory in the embedded processing market.

Obviously Freescale has written a cheque to keep the infamous patent troll at arm's length for a few more years and it is all surprisingly co-operative since the days when Rambus declared war on the outfit.

Rambus had filed a complaint with the ITC last year as part of a major offensive against the semiconductor sector, alleging that Freescale, Broadcom, LSI, MediaTek, Nvidia, STMicroelectronics were infringing its memory controller patents.

Freescale settled causing Broadcom to object and ask to see a copy of the agreement.

http://news.techeye.net/chips/freesc...ip-from-rambus