TSMC and GlobalFoundries settle legal dispute, sign cross-licensing deal
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company and competitor GlobalFoundries on Monday inked an agreement to cross-license certain patents related to semiconductor technology, resolving a two-month-old multi-jurisdictional legal dispute that threatened the businesses of customers like TSMC partner Apple.
Under terms of what is being billed as a "broad" global patent cross-licensing deal, TSMC and GlobalFoundries will license each other's existing worldwide semiconductor patents, as well as future intellectual property filed in the next 10 years, in a bid to halt hostilities.
The solution allows companies reliant on TSMC and GlobalFoundries silicon to freely access the chipmakers' technologies and services. Apple, for example, is no longer in danger of being subject to a potential ban on iOSM devices operating on A-series chip fabricated in TSMC's foundry.
"The semiconductor industry has always been highly competitive, driving the players to pursue innovation that enriched the lives of millions of people around the world. TSMC has invested tens of billions of dollars towards innovation to reach our leading position today." said Sylvia Fang, General Counsel for TSMC. "The resolution is a positive development that keeps our focus on advancing the needs of our customers for technologies that will continue to bring innovation to life, enabling the entire semiconductor industry to thrive and prosper."
GlobalFoundries in August filed multiple complaints against TSMC, Apple and other associated companies for alleged infringement of 13 U.S. patents and three German patents covering semiconductor manufacturing processes. Lawsuits were filed in Delaware, Texas and Germany, while a complaint was lodged with the U.S. International Trade Commission.
TSMC vowed to fight the legal barrage, saying it was confident that the allegations were "baseless." Apple's chip supplier answered back in September with its own set of patent infringement lawsuits filed in Germany, Singapore and the U.S.
With a steady stream of orders coming in from Apple and other big-name technology sector players, TSMC is considered the world's largest contract chipmaker. The company's latest and most advanced chip, Apple's A13 Bionic, is thought to be fabricated on a special 7nm process dubbed "N7 Pro."
Under terms of what is being billed as a "broad" global patent cross-licensing deal, TSMC and GlobalFoundries will license each other's existing worldwide semiconductor patents, as well as future intellectual property filed in the next 10 years, in a bid to halt hostilities.
The solution allows companies reliant on TSMC and GlobalFoundries silicon to freely access the chipmakers' technologies and services. Apple, for example, is no longer in danger of being subject to a potential ban on iOSM devices operating on A-series chip fabricated in TSMC's foundry.
"The semiconductor industry has always been highly competitive, driving the players to pursue innovation that enriched the lives of millions of people around the world. TSMC has invested tens of billions of dollars towards innovation to reach our leading position today." said Sylvia Fang, General Counsel for TSMC. "The resolution is a positive development that keeps our focus on advancing the needs of our customers for technologies that will continue to bring innovation to life, enabling the entire semiconductor industry to thrive and prosper."
GlobalFoundries in August filed multiple complaints against TSMC, Apple and other associated companies for alleged infringement of 13 U.S. patents and three German patents covering semiconductor manufacturing processes. Lawsuits were filed in Delaware, Texas and Germany, while a complaint was lodged with the U.S. International Trade Commission.
TSMC vowed to fight the legal barrage, saying it was confident that the allegations were "baseless." Apple's chip supplier answered back in September with its own set of patent infringement lawsuits filed in Germany, Singapore and the U.S.
With a steady stream of orders coming in from Apple and other big-name technology sector players, TSMC is considered the world's largest contract chipmaker. The company's latest and most advanced chip, Apple's A13 Bionic, is thought to be fabricated on a special 7nm process dubbed "N7 Pro."
Comments
This isn't the game Monopoly, with a limited number of hotels that must be shared by all the players. TSMC is perfectly able to build as many fabs as it needs to. If Taiwan runs out of space, they can build them in Texas or tons of other places (and they should seriously do that anyway for risk diversification reasons).
More broadly... The history of the semiconductor industry has been one of firms dropping out of the race to the next node, as every next node is more expensive than the last. IBM, Texas Instruments, Motorola, AMD, and DEC are some examples that come to mind. The survivors have been the ones with enough volume (profit) to fund the next node.
When GF gave up on 7nm, it brought us down to just three -- TSMC, Intel, and Samsung.
Intel used to be the leader because they were the biggest fish in the biggest pond -- the PC market. Now the PC market looks like a small pond next to the ocean of mobile, and TSMC is the biggest fish in this much larger market.
The big question in my mind is -- who drops out next? Intel or Samsung?
And given AMD's erratic history, and Apple's awesome design team, it might make more sense for Apple to roll their own than to switch from Intel to AMD.
But who knows... when the A7 came out, I predicted Apple would put their own ARM chips in Macs in 2017. Clearly that didn't happen!
tsmc has all the money it needs to produce anything it needs. GF is tiny in comparison. GF isn’t going to produce any more state of the art, new process anything. They’re of no use to TSMC. In fact, with TSMC announcing that they’re increasing their capital spending on new plant for advanced process nodes, such as 5 and even 3, from $11 billion to $20 billion, I don’t see where GF could possibly fit in there.
I see no reason why Apple would go to AMD even though people have been saying this for years. and us periodically successful, as they are now, and then, they aren’t. People have been saying that because Apple has been using their GPUs, they would obviously be using their CPUs as well. Bah! Nonsense.
arm is somewhat different. But I still believe that while Apple is undoubtedly looking into it, it’s harder than people think it is, and I’ve given my reasons many times. That doesn’t mean I think Apple will never do it, but it requires much more than a good ARM chip.
I have agreed with many of Wizard69's criticism over the years and I think skepticism is warranted. But I think there's also reason for hope. Apple is just a collection of managers and employees, and so priorities can shift depending on who is in key decision making positions. My hope is that the departure of Ive might lead to better decisions for the Mac, and we are seeing some signs that might be a realistic hope.
I wonder if Jony Ive found the Mac boring (more interested in wearables now) and so was more focused on other things. Yet, as Chief Design Officer, he might have been an organizational bottle neck in moving Mac designs forward and/or pushed designs in unfortunate directions. I can't help but notice that Ive leaves and the MacBook Air is revitalized, the MacBook is dropped, and we get word that keyboard improvements are coming. The new Mac Pro design also is very functional, and only beautiful to people who understand and appreciate the function -- it in no way compromises function in favor of form, which was clearly not true of the 2013 model.
when iPhone, amd later iPad sales were going off the roof, Apple moved much of its energy towards them. Now that they’ve cooled off, it’s moving more to the Mac and wearables, plus services. If iPhone sales soar again, which is always possible, with the iPad following, the company will devote more effort back to that. But I like a more balanced company.