Recently, according to the China trade remedy information network, the US International Trade Commission (ITC) officially launched 337 investigations on electronic devices and semiconductor devices and their components with time aware virtual filling, involving well-known large manufacturers such as NVIDIA, micron, AMD, NXP, ADI, Marvell, and two Chinese Enterprises - Lenovo Group and Suteng juchuang.
It is understood that the survey was proposed by Bell Semiconductor Co., Ltd. in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania on April 28, 2022 and supplemented on May 6, 2022, May 13, 2022 and May 19, 2022 (revised on May 25, 2022). Bell semiconductor filed a 337 investigation application with ITC of the United States, claiming that the product exported, imported and sold in the United States infringed its patent right (U.S. registered patent No. 7007259), and requested ITC of the United States to issue a limited exclusion order and a prohibition order.
According to the complaint, the 7007259 patent relates to a new method for inserting a "virtual" material (also known as "virtual fill") into the low-density region of a semiconductor device to improve the overall uniformity of the surface layer structure and reduce the density change on the surface of the device.
Specifically, the 7007259 patent relates to a method for inserting pseudo metal, which can minimize the timing impact on the clock network and ensure that the minimum density is achieved in a single pass, so that the pseudo region is given priority, so that the pseudo region is located in the last filled virtual metal adjacent to the clock network, so as to minimize the timing impact on the clock network.
The products sued were semiconductor devices (including uncut wafers, cut wafers, and packaged chips and chipsets, whether connected or connected to printed circuit boards) and terminal products, including mobile phones, tablet computers, personal computers and other equipment, graphics cards, memory modules, radios, lidar modules and amplifiers.
It is understood that the predecessor of bell semiconductor is Bell Laboratories, which is the birthplace of many major inventions such as transistors, lasers, solar cells, light-emitting diodes, digital switches, communication satellites, electronic digital computers, C language, UNIX operating system, cellular mobile communication equipment, long-distance television transmission, simulation language, audio movies, stereo recording, and communication networks.
(screenshot from China trade remedy information network)
According to the China trade remedy information network, the companies under investigation that have been identified include NXP (two in the Netherlands and one in the United States); SMC networks (USA); Micron Technology (located in two countries in the United States); NVIDIA (USA); Amd (USA); Acer (one in Taiwan, China and one in the United States); Infineon (USA); Analog Devices Inc. (USA); Bose (USA); Marvell (one in Bermuda and one in the United States); Suteng juchuang (China); Armor man (one in Japan and one in the United States); Socienext (one in Japan and one in the United States); Lenovo Group (China); Motorola (USA).
It is worth noting that there are two Chinese Mainland enterprises on the list, namely, Suteng juchuang and Lenovo.
It is understood that robosense is the world's leading intelligent lidar system technology enterprise. Through the three core technologies of lidar hardware, sensing software and chip, Suteng juchuang provides the market with an intelligent lidar system with information understanding ability, subverts the definition of pure information collection of traditional lidar hardware, endows robots and vehicles with the ability to surpass the perception of human eyes, and guards the safety of intelligent driving.
Headquartered in Shenzhen, Suteng juchuang has a talent team from the world's top enterprises and scientific research institutions. By 2021, there are more than 700 patents related to the global layout of lidar. Robosense's leading product technology is based on multi-disciplinary and multi-level technology accumulation. We are market-oriented and provide customers with a variety of intelligent lidar system solutions, including MEMS and mechanical lidar hardware, hardware fusion technology, sensing software, etc. At present, the company's partners cover major automatic driving technology companies, automobile enterprises, primary suppliers, etc. in the world. The product technology has been widely used in automatic / assisted driving passenger vehicles & Commercial vehicles, pedestrian free vehicles, robots, robotaxi, robotruck, robobus, new infrastructure of intelligent transportation, etc. among them, the mass production projects at the front installation point cover more than 40 models, such as super car, sedan, SUV, heavy truck, etc.
Another enterprise on the list is Lenovo. As a leading ICT technology enterprise in the world, Lenovo provides hundreds of millions of smart terminal devices to users worldwide every year, including computers, tablets, smart phones, etc. Since 1996, the sales volume of Lenovo computer has been the first in China's domestic market; As a leading enterprise in the global computer market, Lenovo is engaged in developing, manufacturing and selling reliable, safe and easy-to-use technical products and high-quality professional services to help global customers and partners achieve success. In recent years, Lenovo has actively promoted the development of "equipment + cloud" and "infrastructure + cloud" in the industry, as well as the implementation of intelligent solutions.
The information shows that ITC will determine the end of the investigation within 45 days after filing the case. Except for the rejection of the United States trade representative for policy reasons, the relief order issued by the United States International Trade Commission in case 337 shall take effect from the date of issuance and shall have final effect on the 60th day after the date of issuance.