SK Hynix announced on August 5 that it reached an agreement with a U.S. chip maker SanDisk to expand the scope of bilateral cooperation, including the extension of patent cross licensing agreements and the DRAM supply contract. SanDisk also decided to cancel all of the pending litigations it has filed against SK Hynix.
SK Hynix and SanDisk had signed the patent cross licensing contract in 2007, which was renewed in December 2012. This time, the two parties decided to renew the contract up to March 31, 2023. Under the terms of the contract, SK Hynix will pay a certain amount of royalties to SanDisk.
During the contract terms, SanDisk will be supplied by SK Hynix a stable amount of DRAMs which are needed for the former’s MCP and SSD products. As the two parties agreed to strengthen cooperation, the lawsuit filed by SanDisk against SK Hynix in March 2014 for infringement of trade secrets would be withdrawn.
An SK Hynix official said, “With this partnership, we expect to be able to address our management uncertainties, as well as to place more focus on improving product development capabilities.”
