Lei Feng.com news, on the afternoon of October 29, GlobalFoundries (Lei Feng.com: GlobalFoundries, referred to as GF, is a chip foundry company from the United States) and TSMC announced that the two companies have terminated their relationship with each other. patent disputes and signed a cross-licensing agreement. The cross-licensing agreement applies to each other's existing semiconductor patents worldwide, as well as patent applications to be filed over the next ten years.
However, in the past two months, the two companies have not been getting along happily; you must know that they are both important players in the global semiconductor foundry field-according to Top Industry Research Institute According to the rankings released in mid-June 2019, the top three global chip foundry companies are TSMC, Samsung, and GF. Among them, TSMC has a market share of 49.2%, the second-placed Samsung has a share of 18%, and the third-placed GF's market share is 8.7%. Therefore, the legal disputes between them regarding patents can be called a major shock to the semiconductor industry.
On August 26 this year, GF launched lawsuits against TSMC in the United States and Germany, claiming that TSMC had infringed on 16 of its patents; the lawsuits were filed in the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC), Delaware and Deutsche Initiated by the U.S. Federal District Court in Western Saskatchewan and the District Courts in Dusseldorf and Munich, Germany.
Lei Feng.com Note: The picture above shows GF’s 16 accusations against TSMC
In fact, it is not TSMC itself that imports TSMC’s semiconductor products to the United States and Germany. Is a customer of TSMC. In other words, GF filed lawsuits against TSMC in the United States and the United States. It is actually seeking a broader injunction, that is, as long as the products of the relevant companies contain the chips involved in this case, they cannot be imported into the United States and Germany.
If GF’s lawsuit is supported by law, many consumer electronics manufacturers and technology companies will be affected. According to Tom's Hardware's interpretation, the list of the 20 companies involved in this case is as follows:
When GF filed the first lawsuit against TSMC in August, TSMC said that the accusations were baseless and that it would file a lawsuit in court. Defend yourself. In addition, TSMC spokesperson Elizabeth Sun also responded to the lawsuit:
By early October, TSMC dismissed GF’s accusation and in turn filed a lawsuit against GF, accusing it of infringement. 25 patents related to TSMC's node process.
All in all, as both important players in the global semiconductor foundry field, the two companies are inextricably linked, including many conflicts of interest. Recently, the two companies shook hands and made peace and signed a cross-licensing agreement, which is a gratifying thing; after all, the result of continued litigation is likely to be harming both sides, and more importantly, they will devote their energy to product and technological innovation.