Micron to Pay Netlist $600 Million Over Five Years to Settle Memory Patent Fight

MU has agreed to pay Netlist $600 million for a five-year license to Netlist's patent portfolio, Netlist announced on Tuesday. Under the agreement, filed with the SEC, Micron pays $30 million a quarter for 20 quarters, from the fourth quarter of 2026 through the third quarter of 2031, for a worldwide, non-exclusive license covering Netlist's entire patent portfolio, including its server DIMM and high bandwidth memory technology. The deal settles all pending litigation between the two companies. Micron did not immediately comment.

The settlement closes a long fight. Netlist won a $445 million infringement verdict against Micron in federal court in Marshall, Texas, in 2024, and in September it filed a complaint at the US International Trade Commission seeking to block imports of Micron chips used in Google, Nvidia and Broadcom AI products. That complaint put Micron chips sold into AI systems at risk of an import ban. For Netlist, it is the second major memory settlement this year, after it resolved its dispute with Samsung in August following $421 million in verdicts. Netlist shares, which trade over the counter, rose about 18% in early trading.

Micron is also fighting a separate IP battle with Yangtze Memory Technologies (YMTC). In a suit filed in federal court in Idaho on September 15, Micron alleges that former employees took its engineering to YMTC and that patents YMTC is now asserting against Micron were built on that work; the complaint names eight former employees and asks the court to transfer four US patents to Micron. Three days after that filing, a Munich court ruled for YMTC in two cases and ordered Micron to stop selling certain NAND products in Germany, a ruling Micron has appealed. The two disputes are unrelated.

What to watch: how Micron books the license cost, which at $30 million a quarter is spread out rather than paid up front; the outcome of the German appeal and YMTC's other suits; and whether other memory makers face similar claims from Netlist's portfolio.