Nvidia sued over bga patent

[Technoid]

Nvidia has been accused of patent infringement. Minneapolis-based Scanner Technologies claims it owns techniques that the GPU maker uses in the manufacture of ball grid array (BGA) chip-pin layouts without its permission. It said the alleged infringement was "willful and deliberate".

Scanner said yesterday it has filed a complaint with the the US District Court of Eastern Texas. The lawsuit's based on its US patents 7,079,678 and 7,085,411. The former details an three-dimensional inspection of a newly manufactured chip's BGA pin layout, while the latter describes a way of manufacturing BGA chips.

The two patents were filed in February 2005 and awarded, respectively, in July and August this year. Scanner has BGA-related patents stretching back to February 1995, though these are not named in the lawsuit.

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This kind of shit has to stop.

[rylan]

Hmm.. not sure what you mean. Scanner looks like it is actually a real company with a technology/product specifically for BGA inspection.

[Taz]

BGA has been around for a long time, I've got some Kingmax memory that's uses BGA to attach the DRAM's to the board . Or course that doesn't mean that Kingmax didn't license the technology from Scanner Technologies

[Nowhere]

Coorect if I'm wrong, but BGA is used for a long time in GFX chip packages. I'm holding right now Matrox G100 and Voodoo Banshee that were withing reach of my hand and they seem to have BGA. A bit older than 2005...

And anyway...why sue Nvidia? Why not manufacturers of their chips? Could it be...

[Nappe1]

I understood correct, Scanner's complaint considers the technology that is used for checking BGA 's "legs", after welding the chip on board. So, this is more about technology nVidia uses for manufacturing, not about BGA chips themselves.

and yes, I think too that Scanner might have a case here. Manufacturing side of the cards is most likely highly guarded and no outsiders are let in, so it's kind of hard to get evidence that nVidia uses exactly identical tech as they have patents.

[Dr Mordrid]

Once you file you get 'discovery'. No secrets after that order is issued.

[rylan]

Yeah, its not about what BGAs are... no secret there.
The big thing is the patent for stereo 3-dimensional inspection of the part after manufacturing. There is quite a lot of money in the market for microchip inspection cameras and sensors coming out of the fabrication and packaging line.