AMD has licensed a raft of Rambus' memory controller technology patents, including intellectual property embedded in the DDR 2 and DDR 3 standards, the FB-DIMM and Rambus' own XDR system.

The licence will last for at least five years, but the two companies refused to disclose any other terms and conditions underpinning the deal. "Specific terms of the agreement are confidential," said the firms' joint announcement beneath a headline revealing AMD is paying $75m for the rights to the technology.

The statement also said the deal "covers all chips except memory", so expect AMD to use the technology in the memory controllers it builds into its processors, which, it's anticipated, will be upgraded to support at least DDR 2 in Q2 this year. ®