Friday, March 12, 2021

More about Sony Acquisition of Intel Patents

In the end of 2020, there were reports that Sony had acquired a number of Intel patents. An IP analytics blog LexisNexis publishes its analysis of these patents:

"The respective reassignment document lists 35 simple patent families with active US patents. Looking at the drawings shows that the portfolio comprises various technologies like packaging, semiconductor process, systems, computer memory, and image projection. Surprisingly, there are several first page drawings which points to gate-all-around transistor (GAA) technologies, the expected next transistors technology.

This finding was not expected: Sony is not known to be active in advanced CMOS transistor technologies like GAA, or at least not obviously known.

...a quick screening shows that 10 patent families are about to gate-all-around transistors and 3 families relate to finFET transistors. On its face value, the described structures and methods even resemble gate-all-around structures which are published in the literature.

Sony ranks sixth with a small but strong GAA portfolio. Difference between the portfolio size (number of simple patent families) and the portfolio strength (Patent Asset Index) is remarkable: The portfolio strength is more than 10-times larger than the Portfolio Size. This ratio demonstrates the high average quality, measured by the PatentSight Competitive Impact, of Sony's gate-all-around patents, as the Patent Asset Index is the product of Competitive Impact and Portfolio Size."

BusinessKorea believes that Intel GAA patents will be used in future Sony image sensor designs.

3 comments:

  1. She might build 2 nm line with the support of government.

    ReplyDelete
  2. The use of GAA in pixels can have obvious advantages when you think about it, so getting IP in this space is a smart move. I can only imagine Samsung already being one step ahead here.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Please elaborate a bit on the advantages you see in using GAA for pixels.

      Delete

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