|
According to the lawsuit, Micron turned to YMTC's patented
technology to fend off competition from YMTC and to gain and
protect market share. It said Micron was not paying its fair
share to use the patented inventions.
"While we cannot discuss the specifics of pending litigation, I
can confirm that YMTC recently filed a lawsuit in the U.S.
District Court for the Northern District of California against
Micron Technology, Inc for infringement of our company’s patents
related to the design, manufacture, and operation of 3D NAND
technology," YMTC said in a statement to Reuters on Monday. "We
are confident that this matter will be resolved swiftly."
Micron did not respond outside regular U.S. business hours.
Micron makes DRAM chips and NAND flash memory chips and competes
with South Korea's Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix as well as
Japan's Kioxia, a unit of Toshiba. YMTC is a much smaller rival
which was last year barred by the U.S. from buying certain
American components.
The U.S. in recent years has increased restrictions on exporting
chipmaking technology to China on security grounds.
In May, China said Micron products failed a network security
review and barred purchase of them by operators of key
infrastructure.
Micron was embroiled in a dispute in 2018 involving Chinese
state-backed chipmaker Fujian Jinhua which was accused of - and
which denied - trade secret theft. Later that year, its main
products were subject to a temporary sales ban in China.
China was once Micron's biggest market, generating half of its
$20 billion revenue in fiscal 2017. That share shrank to 16% in
2022, a year in which it closed DRAM operations in Shanghai.
Micron has said it remains committed to China. In June, it said
it would invest 4.3 billion yuan ($590 million) in coming years
in its chip-packaging plant in Xian city, and it exhibited for
the first time at a trade expo in Shanghai this month.
($1 = 7.2934 Chinese yuan renminbi)
(Reporting by Anirudh Saligrama, Yelin Mo and Brenda Goh;
Editing by Christopher Cushing and Lincoln Feast.)
[© 2023 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.]
This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content.
|
|
