Lawsuits May Stop MacBook and Nvidia RTX Sales in the US!

GlobalFoundries’ lawsuit could have serious consequences for many tech giants.

It looks like Nvidia has been caught in a cross-litigation because the graphics card maker is using TSMC manufacturing technology, but AMD has pulled out of the line of fire – despite using TSMC technology.

So what exactly is going on here? According to Reuters, GlobalFoundries is suing another chip giant, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, TSMC, alleging that it infringed patents and illegally used the technology in products that have sold tens of billions of dollars.

To this end, GlobalFoundries is not only demanding a large payment, but also trying to block the import of TSMC technologies using the corresponding patents in the United States and Germany (countries in which the claims are filed).

This means that companies that use TSMC-made chips in their products are affected by the lawsuit, including Apple, Broadcom, Mediatek, Qualcomm, along with Nvidia – but not AMD.

So one of the goals of these lawsuits appears to be to stop Nvidia from selling its graphics cards in the US (and Germany), as Turing’s latest products use TSMC’s 12nm process.

The odd thing here, however, is that AMD is also using TSMC, specifically in 7nm Navi graphics cards – and Zen 2 processors are also hitting – but AMD is not being named as a defendant in the lawsuits.

Therefore, it could be that Nvidia is a target as long as AMD goes unpunished.

| PAST AND FUTURE

Why is this so? As noted by PC GamesN, this may be partly due to the previous relationship between AMD and GlobalFoundries, as the latter was once the production arm of the first company (before spinning off into a separate company back in 2009).

But perhaps more importantly, AMD is still the largest customer of GlobalFoundries, as while TSMC is making 7nm chiplets, it is GlobalFoundries who makes the I / O matrix. And in the future, AMD is likely to remain the main customer, so GlobalFoundries will not want to quarrel with AMD.

Patrick Moorhead, an analyst at Moor Insights, told FT.com: “Since Global Foundries is focusing more on other areas (Internet of Things and Radio Frequencies), it looks like it will target companies that are likely not to be future customers, but according to most likely, they violate patents for advanced processors. “

Moorehead goes on to point out that GlobalFoundries was probably already trying to get royalties behind the scenes and, failing, went to lawsuit, adding “End OEMs [как Nvidia] are not the main goal, but are designed to put pressure on TSMC. “

So the lawsuits are more about TSMC and obviously it is unlikely that Nvidia’s GeForce will be banned in the US, although of course the information is worrying. Even if it does, it is likely that Nvidia will enter into a licensing agreement to avoid this prospect.

The same goes for other tech companies announced by the defendants, including Apple, as well as companies like ASUS, Google and Lenovo.

TSMC’s response to the lawsuits is to fight back the overwhelming criticism, the company released a statement that said, “We are disappointed that colleagues are resorting to baseless lawsuits instead of competing in the market with technology.”

In addition, TSMC said it will actively fight these lawsuits, relying on “any and all options available” to protect itself, so, as you would expect, the manufacturer is not going to put up with the state of affairs.

One thing is for sure: it will be interesting to see how things turn out.

Take a look at the best gaming laptops of 2019.