ITC, Cypress, GSI, SRAM Firm alleges collusion by SRAM vendors

SAN FRANCISCO—Static random access memory (SRAM) vendor GSI Technology Inc. said Monday (July 25) that it filed a complaint in U.S. federal court alleging that Cypress Semiconductor Corp. and other SRAM vendors participated in a conspiracy to monopolize the market for high-performance SRAMs.

GSI (Sunnyvale, Calif.) also announced that the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) said last week it would formally investigate a patent infringement complaint filed last month against the company by Cypress (San Jose, Calif.)

GSI said its complaint against Cypress, filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, alleges that Cypress and other co-conspirators engaged in anti-competitive, collusive and conspiratorial conduct that violated Section 1 of the Sherman Act and also constitutes unlawful restraint of trade and unfair competition under California law. The alleged co-conspirators mentioned in the complaint include Micron Technology Inc., Integrated Device Technology Inc., NEC Corp., Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., Hitachi Ltd. and Renesas Technology Corp.

The complaint alleges that Cypress and the other companies manipulated the SRAM market by setting standards amongst themselves in a closed setting, rather than using an open standards body such as Jedec. 

The companies allegedly banded together "to protect their members' SRAM market shares by excluding their competitors from having access to information describing the specific form, fit and function specifications and information that would otherwise be available in an open and public standards body such as Jedec or IEEE," the complain states. "Their illegal combination and conspiracy permitted the consortium members to control the market by keeping networking SRAM prices high, locking in the limited number of consumers of networking SRAM before competitors could develop and market competing products and stalling the introduction of competitive products."

The high-performance SRAM devices at issue in the district court caseare known as fast synchronous quad data rate (QDR) SRAMs and double datarate (DDR) SRAMs, GSI said.

The complaint seeks damages, in an amount to be determined at trial, a preliminary and permanent injunction prohibiting the continuation of the unfair and illegal business practices and recovery of GSI's attorneys' fees and costs, GSI said.

Cypress's ITC complaint seeks a limited exclusion order excluding the allegedly infringing SRAMs, and products containing them, from entry into the U.S. and permanent orders directing GSI and the other proposed respondents to cease and desist from selling or distributing such products in the U.S.

GSI said it believes that it has "meritorious defenses" to Cypress infringement claims and intends to defend itself vigorously in the ITC proceeding while also vigorously prosecuting its antitrust claims against Cypress.
ITC, Cypress, GSI, SRAM Firm alleges collusion by SRAM vendors