Citizen Watch Co Ltd and Motorola Inc have agreed to share patent rights on ball grid array chip-mounting technology, Citizen said. The agreement gives Citizen the opportunity to benefit from licensing the technology, which makes circuit design much easier by increasing the pins available for components. The idea was dreamed up by Motorola, which took out patents, but Citizen helped develop the technology through the manufacturing process, it said. The two firms had been in discussions on the patent for about two years. Terms were not revealed.
