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NOV.-DEC 2019 TAP TIMES -6- semiconductor competitors, found guilty
of infringement, were excluded from brin-
ing any chips assembled with bottom-gat-
ing into the U.S. Virtually all IC assembly
Bottom-gating (from 4)
was then offshore, as it is now.
TI alleged that Analog Devices and the
four other semiconductor makers violated PC boards excluded
Section 337 of the Tariff Act of 1930.
In addition to importing chips, the five
companies, unless they secured a license
At the time, the few companies that were
not using bottom-gating were employ- from TI, were not allowed to import PC
boards containing bottom-gated chips.
ing a method known as same-side- or top
gating for plastic packages.
This exclusion also applied to any compa-
nies that placed bottom-gated chips on a
circuit board as part of a system.
A sharp light
The infringement actions brought by TI to Chips which were part of a system, such
the ITC shone a sharp light on this then as computers “or other downstream prod-
generally little-known agency, buttressing ucts,” however were allowed importation.
the ITC’s 1986 ruling against a handful of
Japanese memory chip makers. probably because of the sheer difficulty of
keeping track of all the components.
In January 1986, the ITC ruled that sev-
eral Japanese semiconductor makers vio-
lated U.S. import provisions by importing
256K and larger memory by dumping—
selling the chips at a price lower than
their cost of manufacture (NY Times
1/23/1986).
Japanese giants
These memory importers included such One of TI’s Texas-based wafer fabs. Virtually all of the
behemoths as Fujitsu, Hitachi and Toshi- company’s packaging has been done offshore for de-
ba; the cheap imports devastated the U.S. cades. The IC was invented at Texas Instruments.
(TI photo)
memory chip industry,
The ruling by the ITC was not an easy, nor
The ITC complaint was based on litiga- cheap victory for TI.
tion filed by Micron Technology, then a
tiny semiconductor maker near the potato
fields of Boise, Idaho. Receiving backlash
During the course of the investigation,
From its early start as a minor maker and TI’s attempt to collect royalties on the
seller of memory, after outlasting many patent were receiving backlash from the
larger U.S. memory providers, Micron has companies that were already paying on
become he world’s third largest memory the ‘027 patent, but believed it had be-
seller, just behind Samsung and SK Hynix. come entrenched as an industry standard
and should not be subject to license.
With the ITC’s pre-appeal ruling, the five Next page
