Rambus shares up on hope for settlement

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Rambus Inc (RMBS.O) shares rose 3 percent on Monday after a post on a message board predicted the microchip designer would reach a settlement in its legal battle with Micron Technology Inc (MU.N), Samsung Electronics Co Ltd (005930.KS), and Hynix Semiconductor Inc (000660.KS).

The post on www.investorvillage.com claimed to be from Rambus' former general counsel, John Danforth, but the authenticity could not immediately be verified.

"It's the reason the stock's moving," said Capstone Investments analyst Jeff Schreiner, adding that the stock is frequently pushed as much as 10 percent in a day by rumors.

Rambus declined to comment on the post, including its authenticity.

The post predicted that Micron would be the first to settle with Los Altos-based Rambus, which has sued Samsung, the world's largest memory maker along with Hynix and Micron, alleging price-fixing that hurt sales of its RDRAM memory chips used in computers.

Shares of Rambus rose 8.2 percent to $17.97 on the Nasdaq.

(Reporting by Ian Sherr)