| Summary: | 碩士 === 東吳大學 === 法律學系 === 97 === The semiconductor industry has been evolved from the vertical type of integration to the horizontal type since the Integrated Circuit (IC) technology started in 1959. Until 1900, the foundry industry played the role of semiconductor manufacturer and cooperates with IC design industry to establish the new business model and supply chain of semiconductor industry. With the advances in semiconductor manufacturing technology and the trend of “System on Chip” (SoC), a new design approach called “Silicon Intellectual Property” (SIP) based on predefinition, verification, and reuse of IC design blocks was provided to shorten the period of IC design, improve the performance of IC design, and reduce the cost. The IC design industry entered another new evolution.
The performance of SIP and warranty against defects has shown along with the contract for SIP trading recently. In this research, typical trading modes and business models of SIP trading are analyzed. Furthermore the comparison of warranty against defects within intellectual property right (IPR) laws and the civil law is made to provide whether the considered cases with IPR defects in contract are applicable to the civil law. Specially focusing in SIP contract, this research tries to classify the most common disputes in SIP contract – transfer and license for patent right and technology, and generalize corresponding effect to the IPR defects for SIP contract. The suggestion about management and risk on performance and warranty against defects in SIP contract will be provided based on the writer’s experience for 10 years in semiconductor industry, including : (1) establish management mechanism of “SIP clean room” to isolate the contaminated SIP ported from competitors and lower the risk of IPR defects; and (2) for the new IC package technology about “Wafer Level Package” (WLP), how to protect all customer’s SIP for shuttle wafer testing is a new issue for Foundry and needs a fresh approach with “customer orientation” to prevent defects of SIP leakage against the warranty in SIP contract.
SIP industry highly concentrates various IPRs with high risks on performance and defects in transfer and license of patent and technology. Any IPR defect may poison and affect the whole supply chain of SIP and semiconductor industries, which comprise business roles like IDM, SIP Vendor, Design service, IC designer, Foundry, even the Test/Package service. Recently the intermediaries in SIP transaction operation mechanism have been induced and promoted in Taiwan, and the “SIP Mall” is established to standardize the SIP design specification, integrate various product fields of SIP, and speed up the SIP trading between/among the business roles. The risk of IPR defects in SIP contract increase along with more frequent SIP trading. To lower the risk of SIP defects in trading and usage, this research suggests “SIP mall” in Taiwan may refer to the “SIP Insurance” introduced in “Virtual Component Exchange” (VCX) in Scotland. Any verified and certificated SIP which has been exchanged in a transaction plate like “SIP Mall” should be covered under the program of “SIP Insurance” to protect SIP license and return for damaged product, which the indemnity caused by SIP defects might be totally compensated.
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