AMD and ADI reach a settlement: ADI withdraws the lawsuit, the two parties promise to cooperate
Recently, AMD announced a settlement with ADI (Analog Devices, Inc). According to the agreement negotiated by both parties, ADI canceled the ongoing patent infringement litigation. In addition, the agreement also requires the two companies to seek technical cooperation to provide next-generation solutions for communications and data center customers.
As a Fortune 500 multinational semiconductor device manufacturer, ADI has a leading position in the analog, mixed-signal, and power-integrated circuit markets. In December 2019, ADI filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Xilinx. ADI claims that Xilinx has used eight important patents of ADI’s analog-to-digital converter technology in at least two high-end Zynq UltraScale+RFSoC products without authorization. ADI requires Xilinx to stop selling any products that infringe its patents and demand compensation.
Xilinx is the world’s leading manufacturer of programmable logic devices, as the inventor of FPGA, programmable SOC, ACAP, etc., Xilinx also ranks No. 1 among global FPGA suppliers. In 2020, Xilinx’s global market share will exceed 49%. In order to compete for the data center, cloud computing, edge computing, and other markets, AMD started negotiations on the acquisition of Xilinx in October 2020. Finally, on February 14, 2022, AMD announced that the acquisition of Xilinx had been completed in an all-stock transaction. After the acquisition is completed, AMD naturally needs to face lawsuits from ADI.
AMD and ADI have not released any news on the content of the agreement. However, judging from the outcome of reconciliation and commitment to cooperation, the benefits of cooperation between the two parties are greater than the competition.
