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Winbond Electronics Corp. On Wednesday said that it would produce own-brand dynamic random access memory for graphics cards and other multimedia applications. Winbond has acquired GDDR technologies from insolvent Qimonda AG, for whom it used to produce various products in the past.
Under the agreements, Winbond acquires licenses under patents, know how and software from Qimonda to design, develop, manufacture and sell GDDR products. The parties agreed to extend the licensing scope under the existing license agreement. Both parties reached agreement on their respective claims available under the Qimonda insolvency proceedings, in particular, Winbond gave up approximately $28.30 million debt of Qimonda.
In order to avoid conflicts of interests, Winbond will produce own-brand GDDR memory using 70nm process technology, whereas GDDR for Elpida Memory will be made at 65nm node.
Potentially Winbond is now capable of making own-brand GDDR3 and GDDR5 memory chips with various capacity, however, the company did not outline any concrete GDDR roadmap on Wednesday.
At present only Hynix Semiconductor and Samsung Electronics produce GDDR memory, which is used on graphics cards, inside video game consoles and for some other high-performance devices. Later this year Elpida will also start to sell GDDR3 and GDDR5 memory. Successful execution of entering GDDR market will mean expansion of Winbond’s core business while reducing dependence on commodity DRAM in Winbond wafer fab.
