• Competitor rules

    Please remember that any mention of competitors, hinting at competitors or offering to provide details of competitors will result in an account suspension. The full rules can be found under the 'Terms and Rules' link in the bottom right corner of your screen. Just don't mention competitors in any way, shape or form and you'll be OK.

AMD sued by Richtek: Proposed "import ban"

Soldato
Joined
7 May 2006
Posts
12,183
Location
London, Ealing
Richtek has sued AMD, Sapphire, XFX, Diamond and uPI because of an alleged infringement of their patents 7,315,190, 6,414,470 and 7,132,717, which are about PWM IC controllers, multi-phase DC-DC converters and MOSFET placement.

Richtek has demanded an import ban on the graphics cards and monetary compensation from the International Trade Commission.
http://translate.google.com/transla...tp://forum.donanimhaber.com/m_36752654/tm.htm

Patent 7,315,190
The present invention discloses a PWM integrated circuit which may receive a programming signal without any extra pin. The PWM integrated circuit comprises: a comparator having two outputs; two pins respectively electrically connected with the two outputs; and a programming unit electrically connected with at least one of the two pins for setting a parameter inside the PWM integrated circuit. The two pins of the PWM integrated circuit may be used to respectively control a control switch and a synchronous switch, constituting a PWM circuit for generating PWM signals.

Patent 6,414,470
An apparatus and method for current balance in a multi-phase DC-to-DC converter with a converter output voltage and a plurality of channel currents employs for each channel a multi-input pulse width modulator or an ordinary pulse width modulator in conjunction with a multi-input comparator to produce a respective PWM signal to regulate the corresponding channel current. In addition to the comparison of the converter output voltage with a reference signal to produce an error signal, the apparatus and method compares the error signal with a ramp signal and the corresponding channel current with each of the other channel currents with the multi-input pulse width modulator. Alternatively, a ramp signal is compared by the ordinary pulse width modulator with a signal derived from the multi-input comparator which subtracts the corresponding channel current from each other channel current and sums the error signal.


Patent 7,132,717
A power metal oxide semiconductor transistor layout is disclosed. The power metal oxide semiconductor transistor layout uses network of conductive lead line as a connection or a network connection to connect source and drain regions thereby achieves advantages of a high uniformity of current, low Rds_on, much less power loss, an actual line density two times larger than that of conventional layouts and a strengthened resistance to electron migration.
 
Last edited:
I'm not sure what to make of this... but its sounds like they are broadly describing a fairly obvious and fundemental way to implement something - patents like this, if it is the case, make a mockery of the whole system and hold up progress...
 
Can a mod change any mention of AMD to Nvidia so we can have proper bash thread? nobody plays when it's AMD. :p

AMD are obviously operating on a level of evil I can't even comprehend (god knows I can't read legal documents on obscure elements of technology). I much prefer Nvidia's way of being evil: good and simple, easy to spot.
 
so are they going to sue asus, gigabyte, and all the rest too ? I m sure they use some of these..... sounds funny as soon as AMD do well they get sued for silly patents, which most things use in PC these days

also to the point, I never heard of them before?
 
Last edited:
so are they going to sue asus, gigabyte, and all the rest too ? I m sure they use some of these..... sounds funny as soon as AMD do well they get sued for silly patents, which most things use in PC these days

also to the point, I never heard of them before?

AMD have been constantly under attack from companies like intel, often through proxies... its a testament to some of their business guys they've made it so far.
 
Richtek has sued AMD, Sapphire, XFX, Diamond and uPI because of an alleged infringement of their patents 7,315,190, 6,414,470 and 7,132,717, which are about PWM IC controllers, multi-phase DC-DC converters and MOSFET placement.

Richtek has demanded an import ban on the graphics cards and monetary compensation from the International Trade Commission.

Ah S***,

There goes my 5970 I have been waiting a month for again......:D

Happy New Year All
 
yeah they have had a rough time, I through intel and AMD sorted out their "problems"

I think Richtek have just targeted AMD and AIB partners over silly patents..
 
sounds stupid and just a way to make money if you ask me , how can they sue amd for where they place the mosfets ? . i think e-tailers/retailers should sue Richtek as it could lower the sales of these gfx cards from lack of stock ;)
 
Don't forget that AMD came into a lot of money recently due to the Intel settlement, so it's no surprise that they're going to garner extra attention from various leeches as a result.
 
One more example of a stupid patent that will no doubt get settled out of court quickly thus making it worth their time suing in the first place. Would love to see this one fought but really cannot see it.
 
Back
Top Bottom