FTC says Rambus monopolizes chip markets

The ruling from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission puts at risk tens of millions of dollars in royalties that Rambus, which has no manufacturing facilities of its own, earns from licensing its technology to other chipmakers.

"It's definitely a big setback for the company," said Daniel Amir, an analyst with WR Hambrecht. "It's all downside in a way. When you're losing a case against the government, you're dealing with broad implications."

In a statement on its Web site, the FTC said that Rambus, "through a course of deceptive conduct," was able to distort industry standards for a type of memory chip known as dynamic random access memory, or DRAM.