the type of memory see rdram . this article contains content that is written like an advertisement . please help improve it by removing promotional content and inappropriate external links and by adding encyclopedic content written from a neutral point of view . august 2015 learn how and when to remove this template message rambus incorporated type public traded as nasdaq rmbs founded 1990 headquarters 1050 enterprise way suite 700 sunnyvale california united states key people mark horowitz co founder mike farmwald co founder dr. ronald black ceo number of employees 425 website www.rambus.com www.rambus.com lighting rambus incorporated founded in 1990 is an american technology licensing company known primarily for their development of rdram . today the company is developing memory systems for next generation smartphones and tablets and with the acquisition of cryptography research inc now developing security solutions for cloud computing and mobile devices . 1 contents 1 history 2 technology 3 lawsuits 3.1 patent lawsuits 3.2 federal trade commission anti trust suits 3.3 european commission anti trust suit 3.4 recent settlements 4 management team 5 see also 6 references 7 external links history edit rambus a california company was incorporated in 1990 and re incorporated in the state of delaware in 1997 . the company was listed on nasdaq in 1997 under the code rmbs . as of february 2006 rambus derived the majority of its annual revenue by licensing patents for chip interfaces to its customers . according to the wall street journal history of rambus has been marked by litigation including patent battles with numerous chip makers . 2 rambus share price has ranged between a high of nearly 150 in 2000 to a low of approximately 3 in 2002 with a 4 1 split on june 15 2000 . rambus share price in the first quarter of 2010 was between 20 and 24 giving the firm a market capitalization value of around 2.5 billion . 3 technology edit plaques on a wall at the rambus headquarters then in los altos in 2009 with the caption license to speed each representing a u.s. patent issued to the company . an early version of rdram base rdram was used in the nintendo 64 that was released in 1996 . 4 the first pc motherboards with support for rdram were released in 1999 . they supported pc800 rdram which operated at 400 mhz but presented data on both the rising and falling edge of the clock cycle resulting in effectively 800 mhz and delivered 1600 mb s of bandwidth over a 16 bit bus using a 184 pin rimm form factor . this was significantly faster than the previous standard pc133 sdram which operated at 133 mhz and delivered 1066 mb s of bandwidth over a 64 bit bus using a 168 pin dimm form factor . some disadvantages of rdram technology however included significantly increased latency power dissipation as heat manufacturing complexity and cost . pc800 rdram operated with a minimum latency of 45 ns compared to 15 ns for pc133 sdram . rdrams can also be told to increase their latencies in order to prevent the possibility of two or more chips transmitting at the same time and causing a collision . however sdram latency depends on the current state of memory so its latency can vary widely depending on what happened earlier and the strategy used by the sdram controller while rdram latency is constant once it has been established by the memory controller . rdram memory chips also put out significantly more heat than sdram chips necessitating heatsinks on all rimm devices . 5 rdram also includes a memory controller on each memory chip significantly increasing manufacturing complexity compared to sdram which used a single memory controller located on the northbridge chipset . rdram was also two to three times the price of pc133 sdram due to manufacturing costs license fees and other market factors . with the introduction of the intel 840 chipset dual channel support was added for pc800 rdram doubling bandwidth to 3200 mb s by increasing the bus width to 32 bit . this was followed in 2002 by the intel 850e chipset which introduced pc1066 rdram increasing total dual channel bandwidth to 4266 mb s. also in 2002 intel released the e7205 chipset which introduced dual channel ddr support for a total bandwidth of 4266 mb s but at a much lower latency than competing rdram . in 2003 intel released the 875p chipset and along with it dual channel ddr400 . with a total bandwidth of 6400 mb s it marked the end of rdram as a technology with competitive performance . rambus also developed and licensed its xdr dram technology notably used in the playstation 3 and more recently xdr2 dram . lawsuits edit in the early 1990s rambus was invited to join the jedec . rambus had been trying to interest memory manufacturers in licensing their proprietary memory interface and numerous companies had signed non disclosure agreements to view rambus technical data . during the later infineon v. rambus trial infineon memos from a meeting with representatives of other manufacturers surfaced including the line o ne day all computers will be built this way but hopefully without the royalties going to rambus and continuing with a strategy discussion for reducing or eliminating royalties to be paid to rambus . as rambus continued its participation in jedec it became apparent that they were not prepared to agree to jedec s patent policy requiring owners of patents included in a standard to agree to license that technology under terms that are reasonable and non discriminatory 6 and rambus withdrew from the organization in 1995 . memos from rambus at that time showed they were tailoring new patent applications to cover features of sdram being discussed which were public knowledge jedec meetings are not secret and perfectly legal for patent owners who have patented underlying innovations but were seen as evidence of bad faith by the jury in the first infineon v. rambus trial . the court of appeals for the federal circuit cafc rejected this theory of bad faith in its decision overturning the fraud conviction infineon achieved in the first trial see below . patent lawsuits edit in 2000 rambus began filing lawsuits against the largest memory manufacturers claiming that they owned sdram and ddr technology . seven manufacturers including samsung quickly settled with rambus and agreed to pay royalties on sdram and ddr memory . in may 2001 rambus was found guilty of fraud for having claimed that it owned sdram and ddr technology and all infringement claims against memory manufacturers were dismissed . in january 2003 the cafc overturned the fraud verdict of the jury trial in virginia under judge payne issued a new claims construction and remanded the case back to virginia for re trial on infringement . in october 2003 the u.s. supreme court refused to hear the case . thus the case returned to virginia per the cafc ruling . in january 2005 rambus filed four more lawsuits against memory chip makers hynix semiconductor nanya technology inotera memories and infineon technology claiming that ddr 2 gddr 2 and gddr 3 chips contain rambus technology . in march 2005 rambus had its claim for patent infringements against infineon dismissed . rambus was accused of shredding key documents prior to court hearings the judge agreed and dismissed rambus case against infineon . this led rambus to negotiate a settlement with infineon which agreed to pay rambus quarterly license fees of 5.9 million and in return both companies ceased all litigation against each other . the agreement ran from november 2005 to november 2007 . after this date if rambus had enough remaining agreements in place infineon may make extra payments up to 100 million . in june 2005 rambus also sued one of its strongest proponents samsung the world s largest memory manufacturer and terminated samsung s license . samsung had promoted rambus s rdram and currently remains a licensee of rambus s xdr memory . in february 2006 micron technology sued rambus alleging that rambus had violated rico and deliberately harmed micron . 7 on april 29 2008 the court of appeals for the federal circuit issued a ruling vacating the order of the u.s. district court for the eastern district of virginia saying the case with samsung should be dismissed saying judge robert e. payne s findings critical of rambus were on a case that had already been settled and thus had no legal standing . 8 on january 9 2009 a delaware federal judge ruled that rambus could not enforce patents against micron technology inc. stating that rambus had a clear and convincing show of bad faith and ruled that rambus destruction of key related documents spoliation of evidence nullified its right to enforce its patents against micron . 9 in july 2009 the united states patent and trademark office uspto rejected 8 claims by rambus against nvidia . 10 on november 24 2009 the uspto rejected all 17 claims in three rambus patents that the company asserted against nvidia in a complaint filed with the u.s. international trade commission itc . however the itc has announced that out of five patents nvidia did violate three of them . due to this ruling nvidia is facing a u.s. import ban on some of its chips used in the nforce quadro geforce tesla and tegra series graphics products nearly every video card type manufactured by nvidia . 11 on june 20 2011 rambus went to trial against micron and hynix in california seeking as much as 12.9 billion in damages for a secret and unlawful conspiracy to kill a revolutionary technology make billions of dollars and hang onto power rambus lawyer bart williams told jurors . 12 rambus lost on november 16 2011 in the jury trial and its shares dropped drastically from 14.04 to 4.00 per share . on november 16 2011 rambus lost the antitrust case against micron technology and hynix semiconductor . the san francisco county superior court jury ruled against rambus in a 9 3 vote . in a statement posted on the company s website rambus ceo harold hughes said we are reviewing our options for appeal . 13 14 on january 24 2012 a uspto appeals board declared the third of three patents known as the barth patents invalid . the first two had been declared invalid in september 2011 . rambus had used these patents to win infringement lawsuits against nvidia corp nvda.o and hewlett packard hpq.n . 15 on june 28 2013 the court of appeals for the federal circuit reversed the uspto and rambus got the 109 barth patent validity back in conclusion the board s determination that all 25 claims of the 109 patent are invalid as anticipated by farmwald is not supported by substantial evidence . accordingly this court reverses . http www.mololamken.com assets htmldocuments rambus % 20109 % 20opinion.pdf.pdf federal trade commission anti trust suits edit in may 2002 the united states federal trade commission ftc filed charges against rambus for antitrust violations . specifically the ftc complaint asserted that through the use of patent continuations and divisionals rambus pursued a strategy of expanding the scope of its patent claims to encompass the emerging sdram standard . the ftc s antitrust allegations against rambus went to trial in the summer of 2003 after the organization formally accused rambus of anti competitive behavior the previous june itself the result of an investigation launched in may 2002 at the behest of the memory manufacturers . the ftc s chief administrative law judge stephen j. mcguire dismissed the antitrust claims against rambus in 2006 saying that the memory industry had no reasonable alternatives to rambus technology and was aware of the potential scope of rambus patent rights according to the company . soon after ftc investigators filed a brief to appeal against that ruling . on august 2 2006 the ftc overturned