The Register® — Biting the hand that feeds IT

SiS licenses IBM ‘design and process’ patents

Not saying why or for what, though

Taiwan's Silicon Integrated Systems (SiS) tersely announced it has shaken hands with IBM on a "comprehensive" patent cross-licensing deal.

It didn't say much about what technology the deal covers, beyond noting that includes "design and process-related patents".

That suggests that SiS is getting hold of IBM's copper interconnect and silicon-on-insulator technology. It might even include certain PowerPC designs, we would speculate.

Follow that one through, and the deal looks increasingly like SiS is being signed to produce chipsets for IBM hardware or - and this is really pushing the boat out - chips and chipsets for Nintendo's upcoming PowerPC-based GameCube console.

But whatever the deal eventually turns out to involve, it certainly hints at interesting things happening in SiS. ®

Related Story

SiS, VIA and Acer intro Tualatin chipsets

Free research: Application platforms, the state of play

Don’t Miss

Win a Samsung C6625!

Reg Lucky Draw Windows Mobile handsets up for grabs

Palm_Pre_001_SMIs your cameraphone an oxymoron?

Pic Review iPhone 3G v iPhone 3GS v Palm Pre

Reg black vulture logoReg Mobile and Wireless newsletter is go! go! go!

Site news Email-tasm

Sign up, sign up for The Register IT security newsletter

Narrowcasting for the email classes