A jury says Intel owes $2.18 billion for infringing a zombie chip companys patents

Intel may owe quite a bit of cash to a semiconductor company that hasn’t existed for 20 years. A Texas jury has asked Intel to pay $2.18 billion for infringing two patents owned by VLSI Technology, according to Bloomberg.

VLSI seemingly rose from the dead in 2019 specifically to sue. The last time it was a company was in 1999 when Philips purchased the semiconductor design firm for $1 billion, with its assets later traveling to Philips spinoff NXP (which you may know from its tap-to-pay NFC chips, among other things). NXP will reportedly get some of Intel’s money, too.

One of VLSI’s claims to fame was being part of the original project with Apple and Acorn to produce the first ARM processors — and the ARM company — responsible for the...

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