Mattson Technology and Dainippon Screen Manufacturing (DNS) have amicably resolved their legal disputes with a comprehensive, global settlement. The terms include termination of all outstanding litigation between the companies and cross licenses of patents related to certain aspects of wet immersion processing systems. The settlement agreement calls for DNS to pay $40m to Mattson for past damages, including partial reimbursement of legal fees, related to sales of certain wet processing products in the US.

The dispute was over patent infringement claims made against DNS by CFM
Technologies, which was acquired by Mattson in January 2001. Mattson is also
releasing all DNS customers from any claims of infringement relating to
their purchase and future use of DNS wet processing equipment. The parties
have also agreed to pay royalties to each other based upon future sales of
products using the cross-licensed technologies.

Infineon Technologies is to license and transfer its MegaDIP mould packaging
technology to Cyntec, a subsidiary of Delta Electronics. Under the terms of
the agreement, Infineon will also supply at least 50% of the power
semiconductors needed by Cyntec to be incorporated into products
manufactured using this technology. The agreement is aimed at the power
electronics market for small power industrial drives and consumer drives
(home appliances) as well as for power supply modules for PCs. Such devices
will combine power semiconductor technology (IGBT, CoolMOS, SiC, OptiMOS and
Power Control ICs) and packaging expertise from Infineon with the power
electronics system and manufacturing expertise of Delta.

Japan's Nichia and Europe's Osram Opto Semiconductors have entered into a
patent cross-licensing agreement covering indium gallium nitride (InGaN)
semiconductor and related packaging technology. The agreement resolves all
pending patent disputes between the companies. High bandgap InGaN
semiconductor diodes are the basic elements of blue, green, and white light
LEDs, as well as violet laser diodes. Typical applications for InGaN LEDs
include full colour outdoor video displays, LCD backlighting for cell
phones, green traffic signal lamps, colour image scanners, and car
dashboards. InGaN laser diodes are currently used in medical devices and
will soon replace red laser diodes in the next generation of high data
density DVDs.
White LEDs are created by covering a blue light emitting InGaN die with a
thin coat of phosphor. As blue light produced by the die passes through the
phosphor coating, a portion of the blue light is down-converted to yellow
light. This yellow light mixes with the remaining blue light from the die to
create bright white light. White InGaN LEDs are more energy efficient than
conventional incandescent bulbs and last more than ten times longer.