Chip designer Rambus has filed antitrust lawsuits against Siemens and Micron Technology, furthering its legal assault on rivals.
The Los Altos, Calif., company filed an antitrust lawsuit in the Superior Court of California on Wednesday. The suit, which also names Hynix Semiconductor and Infineon Technologies, alleges that the four companies together stifled competition in the computer memory chip market. "From substantial written evidence already in the public record, we believe that these memory manufacturers colluded illegally, thereby limiting consumer choice and depriving our RDRAM products of the opportunity to compete fairly in the marketplace," Rambus general counsel John Danforth said in a statement.
Representatives for the defendants could not be immediately reached for comment. The suit adds to a series of Rambus litigation against competitors and fuels an already contentious faction of the chip industry. U.S. and European regulators are investigating semiconductor manufacturers, including Infineon and Micron Technology, over potential price-fixing in the memory market. Rambus has a history of legal entanglements with its current defendants, including cases against Hynix and Infineon.