Micron Technology will pay Netlist $600 million over five years under a patent-license and settlement agreement resolving pending litigation between the two memory companies.
Micron will pay Netlist $30 million per quarter for 20 quarters, beginning in the fourth quarter of 2026 and continuing through the third quarter of 2031.
In return, Micron receives a five-year license covering Netlist’s worldwide patent portfolio, including technology related to server DIMMs and high-bandwidth memory. The agreement also settles and mutually releases pending legal proceedings between the companies.
The dispute had become increasingly relevant to the artificial-intelligence hardware market.
Netlist won a $445 million patent-infringement verdict against Micron in 2024 and filed another complaint at the U.S. International Trade Commission involving Micron chips used in products from Google, Nvidia and Broadcom for AI computing.
High-bandwidth memory has become a strategically important component of AI accelerators because advanced processors require extremely fast access to large amounts of data.
That has increased both the commercial value of memory technology and the stakes surrounding intellectual-property disputes in the sector.
The settlement removes one source of legal uncertainty for Micron while providing Netlist with a predictable stream of licensing payments.
A related securities agreement also calls for Micron to purchase 10 million Netlist common shares for an aggregate $1 million, according to Netlist’s SEC filing.
For the semiconductor industry, the agreement illustrates how the AI infrastructure boom is increasing the economic importance not only of processors but also of the memory technologies required to keep those processors supplied with data.
