Looking at the patent landscape of 3D memory [1] I don't really see the issue that Intel would be facing. First of all, as a chip maker they seem to have comple

Looking at the patent landscape of 3D memory [1] I don't really see the issue that Intel would be facing. First of all, as a chip maker they seem to have completely withdrawn from the base level science in memory in the first place, which probably hurts them from getting favourable patent deals - but this seems to be a management level blunder, maybe an overreaction to the Pentium 4 proprietary RAM flop. In any case it would IMO be better to just now license 3D memory at market cost rather than just sitting on the hands and let HPC markets fade away. Remember, it has historically only taken 8-10 years for HPC developments to scale down to people's pockets - it could well be that the next iPads outperform what Intel can offer as x86 based laptops, which will not be a good look for software developers deciding which platform they should choose for the next potential killer app. [1] http://www.wipo.int/edocs/plrdocs/en/lexinnova_plr_3d_stacked_memory.pdf http://www.wipo.int/edocs/plrdocs/en/lexinnova_plr_3d_stacke...