IDG News Service - Rambus on Wednesday said it would lay off around 15 percent of staff as part of a restructuring effort in which the company is trying to curb expenses to improve profitability.
Rambus currently has about 500 employees, said Linda Ashmore, a company spokeswoman. A majority of the cuts are being made in the general and administrative operations, and Ashmore declined to provide further details on where job cuts were being made.
The company has also reorganized operations into three divisions to focus on memory and interfaces, lighting and display technologies, and the operations of Cryptography Research, a unit that was formed after Rambus acquired a company of the same name in May last year for US$342.5 million.
As a result of the restructuring, Rambus hopes to save between $30 million and $35 million annually, the company said in a statement. The staff reduction will begin in the coming weeks.
Rambus has sued numerous companies that it claims violated its memory patents and chip technologies. The layoffs and restructuring are not tied to the status of legal cases, Ashmore said, adding that the company's goal is to improve profitability.
Rambus has settled cases and signed license agreements with companies like Samsung, Nvidia and Mediatek, but is still in court battles against companies like Micron Technology and Hynix Semiconductor, in which it has had some setbacks. Rambus in July also said it would appeal a decision by the U.S. International Trade Commission that chip makers LSI and STMicroelectronics did not infringe on patents claimed by Rambus.
Memory companies contend that Rambus deceived members of standards-setting organization Joint Electron Device Engineering Council (JEDEC) by failing to disclose its patents while working with the organization to create memory standards.
