Elpida renews license agreement with Rambus

Elpida, the largest supplier of dynamic random access memory in Japan, on Monday renewed its cross-licensing agreement with Rambus, a developer of memory and interface technologies. For some reason, Elpida also decided to pay Rambus for GDDR5 memory technology, a type that is not believed to be covered by Rambus patents and for which no other company pays a license fee.

This agreement new agreement between Elpida and Rambus covers Elpida’s range of memory products including SDR, DDR, DDR2, DDR3, LPDDR, LPDDR2, GDDR3 and GDDR5 dynamic random access memory (DRAM). Other memory suppliers and manufacturers do not pay Rambus for GDDR5 memory type and it is a surprise that Elpida decided to license the technology developed by JEDEC-led committee from the company that has not been with the standard-setting body for over a decade. GDDR5 is substantially different from DDR, DDR2 and DDR3 memory technologies that power previous-gen GDDR memory series.