Novellus Systems Inc. on Monday escalated its legal fight with chip-equipment rival Applied Materials Inc., accusing it of infringing on a patent that Novellus had acquired from another company hours earlier.
Novellus said Applied Materials, the largest maker of equipment used to manufacture semiconductors, infringed on patents held by the thin-film unit of Varian Associates Inc. Novellus announced its lawsuit just hours after buying the Varian unit for $150 million.
The suit comes a month after Novellus said it would pay Applied Materials $80 million in damages and a royalty fee to settle a patent infringement suit filed against it by Applied.
The new suit involves physical vapor deposition technology, used in machines that apply metallic layers onto wafers from which semiconductors are made.
Novellus said it filed its suit in federal court in San Francisco. Applied Materials executives couldn’t immediately be reached to comment.
