Samsung pays $400m to university for FinFET patent infringement

A major clash between South Korean's premier research-oriented science and engineering institution and Samsung Electronics resulted in the latter having to pay $400 million to the university. A federal jury in Texas ruled that Samsung infringed a crucial FinFET transistor patent owned by the licensing arm of the South Korean university. The patent is not the actual invention of FinFET, but is related to a particular production process.

As AnandTech reports, there was a cooperation between Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) and Samsung, but the latter didn't take FinFET seriously until Intel licensed KAIST's invention. After that, Samsung refused to pay KAIST for using the technology.

The U.S.-based licensing arm of Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) sued Samsung in Marshall, Texas, accusing the world’s largest maker of chips of using its IP illegally. Samsung said that it worked with the university to develop FinFET-related technologies, but KAIST indicated that the chipmaker was “dismissive of the FinFET research” initially and believed that the tech would fail. The university says that Samsung changed its mind about FinFET after Intel licensed the invention. Meanwhile, KAIST alleges that Samsung did not pay for using the technology.

Curiously, Qualcomm and GlobalFoundries were also found to have infringed the patent, but weren't ordered to pay damages. GlobalFoundries licensed Samsung's 14LPP process, and Qualcomm has its chips made by both Samsung and GlobalFoundries. Samsung is considering to appeal the decision.