The US International Trade Commission's (ITC) ruling against Taiwanese chipset designer Silicon Integrated Systems (SiS) is likely to have greater impact on OEM companies than motherboard makers, as the OEM vendors are less flexible in rearranging their product lines, the investment firm Credit Suisse First Boston (CSFB) indicated in its latest industry report.
Given their more responsive business model, motherboard makers are able to quickly turn to adopt other products, such as Intel's cheaper 845GL and 845GV chipsets, which can offer similar price/performance as SiS's products, CSFB noted. The only risk is that manufacturers may have to face increasing inventories of motherboards based on these substitutes.
The OEM companies, on the other hand, may be affected more greatly by the ITC ruling. Compared to board makers, it is more difficult for them to change their product line roadmaps. There are also concerns about whether SiS's new CMOS process will pass US verification and whether supply of the new-process chipsets will be stable enough in the future.
CSFB estimated that Elitegroup Computer Systems (ECS) has the highest SiS-based product ratio among the top four first-tier companies, at nearly 60%. Micro-Star International (MSI) follows with 25-30%.
On October 7, the ITC released its final determination, ruling that SiS violated one of the 29 individual claims mentioned in the patent infringement lawsuit filed by United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC). Based on the ruling, the ITC thus issued a restriction order, which will bar SiS's chipsets and supporting motherboards from being imported into the US.
In response, SiS said that it would put special marks on its chipsets to identify them as being manufactured on the new process, and has offered to replace clients' old products with new-process chipsets.

Source: DigiTimes

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