Spansion snuggles up to Rambus

Los Altos (CA) - Rambus said that it has signed with Spansion a five-year patent license agreement. According to the company, the agreement "grants Spansion a license to a broad range of Rambus patents," but the firm’s management "does not expect revenue generated from this license agreement to be material." Details of the agreement remained confidential.

While one could speculate that Spansion, the spun-off flash memory division of AMD, could be expanding its business into other semiconductor areas such as DRAM, Rambus indicated that the agreement was limited to flash memory : "Rambus has a history of innovation in advanced interface designs, and some of those innovations are applicable to Flash memory," said Sharon Holt, senior vice president of worldwide sales, licensing and marketing at Rambus.