It WAS $100 million per year and now is $50 million per year. They needed money to settle with eDigital !!!

Samsung, SanDisk renew chip licensing agreement

By kunal • May 27, 2009

Samsung and SanDisk have announced their renewal of NAND flash memory license agreement. Though both the companies haven’t revealed the intrinsic agreement details, Samsung will have an upper hand as they’ll pay half the royalty amount that they pay currently.

Samsung is the largest NAND flash memory maker and pays almost $350 million in royalties to SanDisk who holds the patent rights. The 7-year agreement will come into effect from August 14, 2009 after the expiry of the current agreement.

Samsung’s better deal could be attributed to SanDisk’s reducing profits as well as the bleak economy.

The Korean company had offered to buy SanDisk last year, but the latter turned down the offer by claiming that the deal undervalued the company.

http://www.samsunghub.com/2009/05/27/samsung-sandisk-renew-chip-licensing-agreement/