Intel shells out $1.25 billion to settle all AMD litigation

Intel sure sells a lot of chips, but man -- it sure blows a lot of that profit on lawyers. Just months after it got nailed with a $1.45 billion fine from the EU in an AMD antitrust case, nearly two years after AMD hit Intel with another antitrust probe and nearly 1.5 years after the FTC sparked up an investigation of its own, Intel has finally decided to pony up in order to rid itself of one of those back-riding monkeys. In an admittedly brief joint announcement released simultaneously by both firms today, Intel has agreed to cough up a whopping $1.25 billion in order to settle "all antitrust and IP disputes" with AMD. In fact, the pair went so far as to say the following:

"While the relationship between the two companies has been difficult in the past, this agreement ends the legal disputes and enables the companies to focus all of our efforts on product innovation and development."

Aside from AMD's coffers filling up with cash, the agreement also gives both firms patent rights from a new 5-year cross license agreement. Of course, we're betting that this isn't the end of this exceptionally bitter rivalry, and we highly doubt Intel wrote a check this large while grinning from ear-to-ear. That said, we're eager to see what AMD does with its newfound cheddar, and if we had our druthers, we'd sit back and watch it invest heavily into beating Intel to the punch with its next few platforms.

[iNeedaUsername Posted Nov 12th 2009 4:40PM]

Lol so funny, amd still a shitty company, even with this much money they still cannot do anything worthwhile. funny how the only way amd makes money is by sueing company and even still they cannot progress into anything lolamd. amd need to stop being a leech and try to come up with stuff that actually worthwhile to buy.

[SirNoDroin Posted Nov 12th 2009 12:55PM]

like 64-bit computing? you do realize that all 64-bit intel hardware uses AMD's code right?

[ashasaur Posted Nov 12th 2009 1:09PM]

@peace, like the man above me said...you do realize that x64 architectures would not be possible without AMD right?

[iNeedaUsername Posted Nov 12th 2009 1:32PM]

not trying to be flaming but

1961: IBM delivers the IBM 7030 Stretch supercomputer, which uses 64-bit data words and 32- or 64-bit instruction words.
1974: Control Data Corporation launches the CDC Star-100 vector supercomputer, which uses a 64-bit word architecture (previous CDC systems were based on a 60-bit architecture).
1974: International Computers Limited launches the ICL 2900 Series with 32-bit, 64-bit, and 128-bit twos-complement integers; 64-bit and 128-bit floating point; 32-bit, 64-bit and 128-bit packed decimal and a 128-bit accumulator register. The architecture has survived through a succession of ICL and Fujitsu machines. The latest is the Fujitsu Supernova, which emulates the original environment on 64-bit Intel processors.
1976: Cray Research delivers the first Cray-1 supercomputer, which is based on a 64-bit word architecture and will form the basis for later Cray vector supercomputers.
1983: Elxsi launches the Elxsi 6400 parallel minisupercomputer. The Elxsi architecture has 64-bit data registers but a 32-bit address space.
1991: MIPS Technologies produces the first 64-bit microprocessor, the R4000, which implements the MIPS III ISA, the third revision of their MIPS architecture.[2] The CPU is used in SGI graphics workstations starting with the IRIS Crimson. Kendall Square Research deliver their first KSR1 supercomputer, based on a proprietary 64-bit RISC processor architecture running OSF/1.
1992: Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) introduces the pure 64-bit Alpha architecture which was born from the PRISM project.[3]

"1994: Intel announces plans for the 64-bit IA-64 architecture (jointly developed with Hewlett-Packard) as a successor to its 32-bit IA-32 processors. A 1998 to 1999 launch date is targeted. SGI releases IRIX 6.0, with 64-bit support for the R8000 chip set."

and then

2003: AMD introduces its Opteron and Athlon 64 processor lines, based on its AMD64 architecture which is the first x86 based 64 bit processor architecture. Apple also ships the 64-bit "G5" PowerPC 970 CPU courtesy of IBM. Intel maintains that its Itanium chips would remain its only 64-bit processors.

64 bit was out from the start, intel planned to made 64 mainstream way before amd could ever tought of it.

[(Unverified) Posted Nov 12th 2009 3:04PM]

Peace: So you were probably in kindergarten when it happened, but you forget that when the Athlons came out they handed the late P2s and early P3s their asses. AMD topped every benchmark in the business around 2000 and still cost less.

dave g: AMD did not 'invent' 64 bit architecture of course, but they were the first to bring it to the desktop large scale. Intel then had to scramble to catch up, and had to use AMD's desktop 64 bit system to do it because MS said hell no we're not going to support yet another 64 bit architecture.

[DMNblaid Posted Nov 12th 2009 12:51PM]

I Generally was an all intel man, but lately I have been in a bind. I was going yo upgrade my motherboard, but now there is two scokets for intel and only one socket for amd. the AM3. I think I am going to hold out on getting a new motherboard, but I think for the first time ever I am routing for AMD to have its success

[TheHoldSteady Posted Nov 12th 2009 1:28PM]

Given the sick and twisted nature of American business, no doubt the large institutional AMD investors will demand this money be passed along to them instead of used by AMD, and will ironically be backed up by the threat of a lawsuit.

[chuenl Posted Nov 13th 2009 7:13PM]

Intel, a company that has a net worth of 450 billions, played dirty to stole market share from AMD and used that extra cash they robbed to create some super fast chips. Now, they agreed to pay $1.25 billion to shut off AMD so that they won't get fined for another 10 billions.

Good deal, man. Good deal.