Interview: Rambus' chairman looks to the future -- Geoff Tate discusses shortage of U.S. engineers, market opportunities and demand from chipmakers

Digital consumer electronics, and the trend for chip makers to license IP (intellectual property) rather than design everything in-house, is helping boost the market for Rambus, according to Geoff Tate, chairman of the Los Altos, California, technology licensing company specialized in I/O (input/output) interfaces.

The IDG News Service interviewed Tate last week when he was in Bangalore, where the company has set up a design center that will have 50 staff by the end of the year. The interview took place before this week's announcement of a truce in the company's battle with Infineon Technologies over the intellectual property rights to memory technology. Starting in November Infineon will pay Rambus $5.85 million each quarter for a license to existing and future Rambus patents. The payments will continue until November 2007 with special provisions if Rambus is able to sign licensing deals with SDRAM (synchronous dynamic RAM) vendors.

In the edited interview below, Tate talks about the company's strategy for making up for the shortage of quality engineers in the U.S., new opportunities in consumer electronics for the company, and the increasing demand from chip makers for licensable IP.

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