Chip Maker Gets $35 Million Judgment

Neoflexycurrent writes "The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has affirmed a $35 million judgment against Clear Logic for violation of the Semiconductor Chip Protection Act of 1984. The court concluded that the jury properly rejected Clear Logic's argument that it had legitimately reverse engineered Plaintiff Altera Corporation's mask work design to create cheaper application-specific integrated circuits."

Comments

in (somewhat) plainer english

[seanadams.com]

Altera makes chips that can be programmed to do different things (FPGAs).

Clear Logic made "application specific integrated circuits" - ie they only do one specific thing that the customer needs, but are cheaper than programmable chips if you buy enough.

The issue here is that Clear Logic's mechanism for receiving the design from the customer and making it into a chip is to use the programming data (bitstream) for an Altera chip. Then the data is used together with an image (mask) copied from an Altera chip to create the ASIC.

The ruling is that Clear Logic's use of the mask in building the ASIC is not legitimate reverse engineering, but illegal re-use of Altera's IP.

FYI: Clear Logic seems to have been dead since 2003.

editorial: only $35M?

Article text - +5 Informative (and question)

[scovetta]

Ninth Circuit affirms $35 million judgment against semiconductor manufacturer

Case is rare appellate decision under Semiconductor Chip Protection Act of 1984

Altera Corporation filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California against Clear Logic, Inc., a competitor in the semiconductor industry. Altera alleged that Clear Logic had violated the Semiconductor Chip Protection Act of 1984, 17 U.S.C. 901 et seq. ("SCPA"), by using the bitstream generated when programming Altera programmable logic devices to create application-specific integrated circuits. A jury found in favor of Altera, and awarded more than $30 million in damages, plus an additional $5 million in interest and costs.

Clear Logic appealed to the Ninth Circuit, arguing that the trial court improperly instructed the jury regarding the affirmative defense of legitimate reverse engineering, which is provided for under the SCPA. The court affirmed, however, holding that certain misstatements of the law in the jury instructions were harmless error.

The trial court's instructions initially defined "legitimate reverse engineering" to allow copying and analyzing only "non-protectible concepts or techniques" embodied in a mask work. This was an incorrect statement of the law, but the court concluded that further instructions adequately provided correction. The later instructions explained that "it is permissible [under the SCPA] to reproduce 'a registered mask work' as a step in the process of creating an original chip, so long as the purpose of reproducing the chip is appropriate."

Accordingly, the court held that the jury was able to properly conclude that the Clear Logic mask works incorporated into the application-specific integrated circuits were not original, but were copies prohibited under the SCPA.

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And my question is: What the hell is a "mask"? Can someone please post the Wikipedia entry that will explain all the background information I need to know on the subject? It looks to me like a run of the mill, "he copied me" case. Why is this news?

Re:Article text - +5 Informative (and question)

[adisakp]

The mask is like a "negative" for a film. You can think of the chip as the silicon equivalent to the paper used when projecting a film negative onto a photograph.

In this case, the mask was probably used as a starting point -- FPGA's (Field Programmable Gate Array) have switches that control gates for interconnects between logic units and PGA's have little fuses that control the interconnects. They minimally need to know the logic units used and how the interconnects connect them which they could reverse engineer from examination of the mask to determine the gates.

One way to do this is to start with the mask, and create an ASIC with interconnects already in place for the equivalent of a PGA (Programmable Gate Array) without the "P" part. This would still be a "Gate Array" logic part based on the design of the MASK they used but the interconnects would be fixed at the chip creation. This would be about as legal as copying the entire music to a song and replacing the words without paying the songwriter.

Another way to do this is to create the gates and interconnects as a logical entity (i.e. verilog or other definition language) from the reverse engineering of the mask, then fix variables in the logical entity as constants from the programming data and "simplify" or "reduce" the circuit prior to generation of a custom ASIC.

'Mask' in this context

[Colonel Panic]

The 'mask' in this context can be thought of as a set of transparancies with lines on them that define wires on the chip. Chips are made with a photo-lithography process where light is shined onto silicon through a mask. The lines on the mask block the light from hitting the silicon and depending on the process the areas which are exposed on the silicon will be etched away by acids/solvents. Multiple masks are used to create different features/layers on the silicon. some create wires, others create transistors.

Re:'Mask' in this context

[slavemowgli]

JFYI, here's the relevant Wikipedia article, too: Photomask.

Mod parent down - bad link

[Guysmiley777]

Correct link is http://altera.com/

Re:Gee, What a Surprise - 9th Circuit

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.centerforindividualfreedom.org/legal/9t h_circuit.htm

Re:Which Chips?

[lixee]

Custom ASIC? Pleonasm.

Re:Which Chips?

[Austerity Empowers]

I'm guessing taking FPGA code and producing a dedicated ASIC.

Imagine someone buying one Altera eval board (given away if your company is big enough), designing code, getting the timing all worked out, putting it in a board and then going through all the testing. Voila, working product. Only problem? That FPGA is expensive.

So, enter clear logic, they'll copy Altera's mask and subtract all the bits that aren't needed. They'll guarantee identical timing, just lower cost and power. Altera is thus shafted out of a sales they need.

I didn't RTFA, I could be wrong. I only read the comments to see if someone on the inside was posting ;)

Re:Gee, What a Surprise - 9th Circuit

[MikeyTheK]

Wow! 75% of reviewed cases in the 9th were overturned? I thought it was the most overturned Circuit.

Altera Mask Set

[phriedom]

I don't understand how Clear Logic would legally get ahold of an Altera chip mask set. But it seems pretty clear to me that if they are modifying Altera artwork, then they are not reverse-engineering, they are making a derivative work. Looks like the judgement is correct.

Re:Altera Mask Set

[interiot]

Circuit masks are very specifically called out as a special case in copyright law.

It seems like the distinction is similar to music recordings. That copying the majority of an audio recording, with a few tweaks of your own, is considered infringement. While the "underlying ideas" are not necessarily protected, eg. so you could play the exact same notes with very similar timings again on your own instrument, and that would not be considered to be a copyright violation. (eg. they could have reverse engineered the logic of the circuit and re-generated their own, different, layout)

Re:A question: Did Clear Logic use Altera Masks ?

[dougxray]

NO !!!!
I worked for Clear Logic from its begining to its end (we ran out of money paying lawyers). We never used any Altera masks ever. We spent a significant amount of time reverse engineering the masks so we would be legal. I believe the judge never understood this.

Re:A question:

[Mauz]

If I recall correctly, Clear Logic didn't create custom masks for each ASIC, but programmed their sea-of-gates chips by blowing metal fuses with a laser. However, as already pointed out, they did use Altera's files to create their laser program and that is what sunk their ship.