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Memory vendors SanDisk Corporation and SK Hynix have reached an agreement to settle a trade secret misappropriation lawsuit filed by SanDisk last year.
The pair have also tweaked and extended their IP licensing relationship, having entered into a multi-year commercial relationship.
SK Hynix has agreed to supply SanDisk with certain volumes of its DRAM products for MCP and SSD applications.
The new agreements will expire on March 31st 2023. Specific terms and conditions are being kept confidential.
"We are pleased to have reached this important settlement and to expand our commercial relationship with SK Hynix," said Sanjay Mehrotra, president and CEO of SanDisk.
"We believe this resolution acknowledges the value of our intellectual property while providing SanDisk access to DRAM solutions desired by our customers for their mobile and SSD applications for many years to come."
Dr. Sung-Wook Park, president and CEO of SK Hynix, commented: "We believe this resolution is positive for both SK Hynix and SanDisk and our customers. We look forward to this renewal and extension of our business collaboration with SanDisk."
In other SanDisk news, the firm has announced a new 256 Gigabit 3-bit-per-cell (X3) 48-layer 3D NAND chip (pictured below) and the start of 3D NAND pilot line operations in Yokkaichi, Japan, in conjunction with its partner Toshiba.
"We are pleased to announce our first 3D NAND chip targeted for production," said Dr. Siva Sivaram, executive vice president, memory technology, SanDisk. "This is the world’s first 256 Gb X3 chip, developed using our industry-leading 48-layer BiCS technology and demonstrating SanDisk’s continued leadership in X3 technology. We will use this chip to deliver compelling storage solutions for our customers."
BiCS is a nonvolatile memory architecture that aims to bring new levels of density, scalability and performance to flash-based devices. The 256 Gb chip is expected to begin shipping in SanDisk’s products in 2016, with sample shipments arriving this September.
