Cyrix takes new punch in complaint versus TI

Electronic News, Sept 19, 1994

RICHARDSON, TEX. - Cyrix has thrown another punch in the Cyrix/Texas Instruments legal squabble by asking the Texas State District Court in Dallas County to permanently prohibit TI from using Cyrix code in its products. According to Cyrix, TI uses the microcode in its SLC, DLC, Rio Grande and Potomac microprocessors, as well as TI's superscalar project.

Last winter, Cyrix and TI traded lawsuits after negotiations over their February 1991 manufacturing and licensing pact reached an impasse. The original agreement between the companies was terminated in July 1993. TI then filed suit in December to acquire designs for Cyrix's 486SX, 486DX and M1 processor designs, while Cyrix retaliated by seeking a court order to halt TI from making and selling any 486-based processors based on its microcode (EN, Dec. 20, 1993).

The key issue is whether TI lived up to its manufacturing commitments and what processor designs it would receive in return. A related issue is how product generations are defined. TI claims Cyrix's 486SX and DX designs constitute the same level of product as the earlier Cyrix 486SLC. In effect, TI said it has rights to all "486-class" products.

The Cyrix suit is scheduled to go to jury trial in the district court on Oct. 17, and last week Cyrix general counsel Russ Fairbanks offered some remarks that made it clear the two companies are not any closer:

"One would assume that the fourth largest microprocessor company in the world could design CPUs that didn't use our proprietary information. They have blatantly disregarded the terms of the agreement and therefore we are asking the court to halt the free ride TI has had from the use of our designs."

In May of this year, Cyrix filed a separate amendment to its original December 1993 complaint against TI that claims damages against TI at $750 million and punitive damages. Cyrix asserted these damages represent its loss of revenue as a result of TI's decision to discontinue its production and allocation of wafers for Cyrix.

A Cyrix spokeswoman said last week that "In previous entanglements with TI, we had requested they return our intellectual property when we sued them in December of 1993. The difference in this (situation) is that we have claimed there has been a misuse of trade secrets in CPUs they are using as well as designing."

The spokeswoman noted foundry relationships are vital to fabless Cyrix's continued growth. Cyrix has foundry deals with SGS-Thomson and IBM (EN, April 18), the latter allowing for a 50/50 split of wafer production and IBM access to Cyrix designs, but not code.

In March, the Delaware Chancery Court declined TI's request to rule quickly on its case and instead bounced it to the Texas court system (EN, March 28), where it was combined with the Cyrix suit. The combined case was moved to the Texas State District Court in Dallas for hearing next month.

TI did not comment by presstime.