Micron to Pay $600 Million to Settle Netlist Patent Dispute, Secures 5-Year HBM License

Micron Technology (MU-US) will pay $600 million to settle a memory-chip patent dispute with Netlist (NLST-US), securing a five-year license to a patent portfolio that includes high-bandwidth memory (HBM) technology. Under the agreement, Micron will pay Netlist $30 million per quarter for five years, totaling $600 million. The settlement follows years of litigation; Netlist previously won a $445 million patent-infringement judgment against Micron in a Texas federal court in 2024. As HBM becomes critical to AI accelerators, the dispute has extended into the AI supply chain. In September, Netlist filed a new infringement complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission seeking to block imports of Micron chips used in AI computing products from Alphabet (GOOGL-US), NVIDIA (NVDA-US) and Broadcom (AVGO-US). Netlist CEO C.K. Hong said the agreement validates the company's AI memory technology. Micron did not respond to the settlement at the time of publication. Netlist settled a separate memory patent dispute with Samsung Electronics (005930-KR) in August.