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Netlist and Diablo set for legal jaw-jaw, not a war-war

Flash tech dispute could be settled in a matter of weeks

Somebody has been knocking a few heads together, it seems. Netlist’s flash tech shipping injunction stopping Diablo Tech’s business with SanDisk could be lifted – if settlement talks set for 12 February are successful.

Court documents for the case (Netlist, Inc v. Smart Modular Technologies, Inc) reveal that settlement conference statements are due on 6 February.

The background is that Diablo Technology supplies chips enabling SanDisk to put flash dies in DRAM DIMM sockets, which it then sells as ULLtraDIMMs to Huawei, Lenovo and Supermicro.

This enables their servers to have lower access latency to data than would be the case with PCIe flash cards, which lack direct access to the CPU-memory bus.

Netlist has alleged that Diablo developed the technology by wrongfully using its patented ideas and is suing Diablo in the Northern District California court. It recently won an injunction stopping Diablo from shipping its chips to SanDisk, its only customer, and further, stopping SanDisk shipping its ULLtraDIMM products.

The settlement conference document (number 263 in the case files) specifies that “parties shall exchange settlement proposals, and respond to each other's proposals, not later than January 30, 2015", with their respective lawyers "with unlimited authority to settle the case", conferring beforehand.

The lawyers and Netlist, Diablo and SanDisk principles in the case will then meet in person by 6 February. Lead lawyers and principles will then appear at the 12 February conference, and “must have unlimited authority to settle the matter regardless of amount or other terms".

Hopefully this flashDIMM technology origins spat will then be over, and we can all move along and see how the technology develops. ®

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