GF/TSMC Patent Litigation Information

Globalfoudries(GF) has issued a fact sheet for the media from GF regarding patent infringement lawsuits against TSMC and its customers. According to this, It has filed a total of 25 lawsuits against 20 companies, including TSMC, using 16 patents from the United States and Germany, which is the biggest lawsuit campaign that has never been heard before.

There seems to be various speculations about the background, but I think it is necessary to keep an eye on the results because it may impact not only the semiconductor industry but also the entire supply chain of the electronics industry. 7nm, 10nm, 12nm, 16nm, and 28nm processes are listed as target technologies, but 28nm has already been used for many chip venders as the main process and become a volume zone of semiconductor manufacturing because 8 years have passed since the start of mass production. I think that the range of influence is large.

GF has filed 25 lawsuits with 16 patents in the United States and Germany, two at ITC and 19 in two district courts in the United States In 19 cases in the US District Court, the complaints can be confirmed free of charge with the service called Insight provided by RPX, so the defendants and patents are tabulated for each case.

This is divided into lawsuits involving TSMC and not including the defendant. Moreover, the patent used seems to be roughly divided into three groups. I would like to analyze the contents of the patents used in order to understand the level of patents used in such lawsuits.