Interview: Rambus' chairman looks to the future -- Geoff Tate discusses shortage of U.S. engineers, market opportunities and demand from chipmakers
March 24, 2005
Digital consumer electronics, and the trend for chip makers to license IP (intellectual property) rather than design everything in-house, is helping boost the market for Rambus, according to Geoff Tate, chairman of the Los Altos, California, technology licensing company specialized in I/O (input/output) interfaces.
The IDG News Service interviewed Tate last week when he was in Bangalore, where the company has set up a design center that will have 50 staff by the end of the year. The interview took place before this week's announcement of a truce in the company's battle with Infineon Technologies over the intellectual property rights to memory technology. Starting in November Infineon will pay Rambus $5.85 million each quarter for a license to existing and future Rambus patents. The payments will continue until November 2007 with special provisions if Rambus is able to sign licensing deals with SDRAM (synchronous dynamic RAM) vendors.
In the edited interview below, Tate talks about the company's strategy for making up for the shortage of quality engineers in the U.S., new opportunities in consumer electronics for the company, and the increasing demand from chip makers for licensable IP.
Related News
- CEO interview: Flex Logix' Geoff Tate on licensing FPGA
- ChipX Purchases OKI's U.S. ASIC Business Assets and Signs Business Collaboration Agreement
- ARC CEO: 'Impatient capital' hinders U.S. IC industry
- Will offshoring move U.S. chip industry to 'designless' model?
- U.S. District Court For Northern California Conditionally Stays Hynix Trial Against Rambus
Breaking News
- Fractile raises $15m seed funding to develop radical new AI chip and unlock exponential performance improvements from frontier AI models
- Ceva Bluetooth Low Energy and 802.15.4 IPs Bring Ultra-Low Power Wireless Connectivity to Alif Semiconductor's Balletto Family of MCUs
- Agile Analog delivers customizable IP on GlobalFoundries' FinFet and FDX processes
- Ian Walsh appointed as Sondrel's Regional VP for America
- Systems Designed Today Must Support Post-Quantum Cryptography Tomorrow
Most Popular
- Imagination Technologies announces new capital investment from Fortress Investment Group
- Alphawave Semi: Q2 2024 Trading and Business Update
- Agile Analog delivers customizable IP on GlobalFoundries' FinFet and FDX processes
- Efinix Releases Topaz Line of FPGAs, Delivering High Performance and Low Power to Mass Market Applications
- Comcores supports BAE systems as a key partner with JESD204C IP
![]() |
E-mail This Article | ![]() |
![]() |
Printer-Friendly Page |