I Do Thee Wed

In unity, there is strength; or something like that (some say it's from Aesop, others from The Bible). Well, Rambus just scarfed up Unity Semiconductor. This is an interesting development, viewed from at least two angles: 1) Rambus has a history of attempting to proprietarize memory technology, and 2) if CMOx works, NAND vendors are in trouble.

According to the various write-ups, CMOx has been in development by Unity for nine years. I found it about five years ago, and the technology was just ready to go. Guess that part didn't work out. Yes, this endeavor has mentioned Unity a few times over the years. With an aggressive new owner, we could see a major course correction in storage. An interesting point: the Unity website still has a page devoted to a JV with Micron to manufacture PoC (my inference) devices on Micron fab. Wonder what's going to happen to that?

So far as point 1) goes, Rambus has been losing consistently over the last year or so in its attempts to enforce patents. Taking on the NAND vendors won't be a walk in the park. Micron, by the way, didn't settle and turn evidence against the other DRAM vendors; Samsung and others did. Since much of the patents in contention has just been ruled invalid, I wonder how they feel?