Intel shells out $1.25 billion to settle all AMD litigation
By Darren Murph 
posted Nov 12th 2009 10:38AM
posted Nov 12th 2009 10:38AM
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."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."
Yeah, I'm pumped for AMD finally getting some solid modern chips out the door- right after they get done with litigation over it's new naming scheme with a certain construction equipment co...
"Bobcat" is an internal codename for a future AMD chip. It won't be publicly marketed under that name.
AMD will never be perceived by the general public to be as good or better than intel until they start marketing better - and get a better brand name.
Intel markets so aggressively now that I see their commercials and hear the "BUM BUM BU BAA" jingo constantly.
AMD has none of that appeal and is only purchased as a less-expensive option.
the naming scheme kind of makes any potential hackintosh an animal house: "ya, i'm running a Snow Leopard w/ a Bobcat under a silverstone Raven"
The construction company 'naming' you speak of is irrelevant. They also have names in there like 'Tigris' - put that with 'bobcat' and you have them using a scheme similar to Apple. Add in 'danube' - 'sabine' and 'nile' and the the 'bulldozer' term is out of context.
You're reading way too much into it. And even if they did market the term 'bobcat' - the contruction vehicle manufacturer has no case as they do not build micro-computer processor and are not in the same industry.
@Whitecollarcriminal - you're right about one thing - I do remeber never seeing any AMD advertising - TV or otherwise. And the Intel jingle is getting as annoying as Geico's adertising is.
Free R 'n' D AMD! Put it to use sooner rather than later.
To Do List:
1. Corner low-end netbook market. (Geode does not cut it) Your desktop chips are fine, just need competitor to I7.
2. Promote yourself, and your current support of USB3.
3. Something to do with music video featuring cash you just made. Seriously though, make something viral, get your name out there.
Good luck!
Hey, that looks like the "broadcast" lobby in call of duty 4.
adding to the "To-Do" list
1. Change marking strategy, people do not trust a company who's advertisements look like they are for KIRF products and who's product stickers look like they are mid-90s CG art (refering to the phenom logo)
2. Stop making your primary market the "bottom of the barrel" computers. People will associate your company with your products that your chips are in...if 80% of your products are the crappy 400 dollar notebooks, people will be like...oh AMD, isn't that the sticker you see on the crappy computers? Even intel breaks away from this by putting plain stickers on the crapbooks and nice stickers on the good notebooks.
AMD has superior graphics hardware. If they can advertise that properly they'll automatically will get attention.
How about netbooks with Congo chipsets? The Neo processor might not be as "efficient" as the Atom, but the GPU, no memory limit, etc will easily make up for that.
Netbooks are getting popular, they should really look in to that. AMD has very efficient processors and proper graphics hardware, yet they don't want to build on that advantage they have.
They might aswell want to kick in their own windows.
Also, SPEED UP THE FUSION PROJECT!! They can kick Intel's ass with their superior GPU technology and their recently acquired cache memory technology licence.
Expanding UVD would be nice aswell. Integrating interconnect (PCI Express) and host bus (SATA/SAS/SSD) controllers on the APU die should be the next step.
AMD is the king of innovation, yet Intel has an advantage of about a generation. This could help them get back on track.
Holy Crap.
Maybe AMD will finally be able to afford decent heat control in their lower end chips.
you know, they already do, since sometime. in fact they took a leap ahead of intel with the heat thing. intel's currently not the undisputed champ. they have competition at most levels - IF you take price-performance ratio, pure performance intel is undoubtedly the king.
AMD has historically made the cooler chips.
Would've been easier just to buy AMD.
Really. I don't care who you are, losing $1.25 billion to a rival would put anyone's undies in a bind.
@Nocknock:
Yea, but there seems to be billions of dollars thrown around these days.... *cough* US *hack* government. Maybe Intel wants to get on the throwing money away bandwagon...
Intel NEEDS AMD to exist, otherwise they become a true monopoly and their anti-trust trouble multiply...
They just need one good chip the pretty much every government in every nation watching Intel AMD will have a chance this time.
What?
With you agree sometimes I would springy purple dinosaur.
Your argument does not take into consideration the extremely high cost there would be to a new competitor in this field. If AMD went under due to illegal business practices from Intel, a new contender would be a long way off. This world is run my computers, and if you'd rather be stuck with one CPU company who would gladly make you pay $400 for a Pentium 4 if there were no other option, well good luck with that. I don't understand how people can complain about being forced to adhere to rules that are set in place to begin with. What's next? AMD decides it'd be good business sense to systematically assassinate all the top decision makers at Intel? Would you complain that homocide laws shouldn't stand in their way?
This shit is so annoying. Business is Business. It's not "fair play time at the playground." So dumb. Same with the Microsoft anti-trust shit. If they have the power to do shit like they do, its because they earned that top spot. So let them reap the benefits.
Either you're an idiot, or simply trolling.
It's okay if a company uses its monopoly status so that it can crush competition rather than try to innovate and compete with them? Guess what companies do when they no longer have any competition...
Cornelius, you sir are the idiot for not even considering this point of view (which has plenty of validity)
Personally I agree with CarpeD1em500 100%...what he speaks of is true capitalism...something this country has less and less of. I've never agreed with Monopoly protection, but it wasn't even made for product producers, it was put into place way back when (around the same time as unions) to prevent companies from gaining strangleholds on infrastructural industries (such as transportation, electricity, and telephones). How can a PRODUCT manufacture have a monopoly...if people are not happy with a product manufacture they can choose not to buy the product, this isn't like a evil railroad tycoon who people can't get to work without the train (and don't say, "well people NEED to use computers", because you know that is BS, its that we have allowed ourselves to become dependent on them...a short 30 year ago this way NOT the case).
Besides, if you have read the "Wealth of Nations", you would know that true Capitalism does work...if intel really was a Monopoly another company would be forced to come up with the next best thing in order to counter them....greed is the driving force of innovation. All this babysitting is half of what is wrong with the economy in the first place, and companies need to stop wasting time and money suing each other out of existence and spend those resources on R&D instead.
""well people NEED to use computers", because you know that is BS, its that we have allowed ourselves to become dependent on them...a short 30 year ago this way NOT the case)."
Just because it happened recently doesn't make it untrue. It is a fact to run a successful business in almost any industry you need a computer. Also you need to get over your pipe-dream. How do you suppose a new company is going to produce and market a competitive product while the much larger company is actually paying people not to use it.
bf71090
as i said, read the wealth of nations, it's outline pretty clearly
In this thread - lots of AMD fanboys who can't come to grips with the fact that their product selection is inferior, so they resort to point fingers at the leader and saying they cheated.
Grammar, you're reading more into his statement than what he said. And your post is all over the place.
Did you even know what the allegations against intel were?
Product manufacturers can certainly have monopolies. And they can certainly violate anti-competitive laws that were set up to protect the consumers. Companies with majority marketshare can easily choke supply channels so that their vendors have no choice but to agree to exclusivity agreements, but this practice is illegal in America.
There are certain legal IP restrictions preventing other companies from entering the x86 arena. Thus, in order to manufacture an CPU that uses the x86 ISA requires a license from intel. AMD is the only one exempt mostly due to previous licenses and an intel-AMD court settlement in the 90s. That, and the fact that any level of R&D to make a competing product can cost billions, is a barrier for smaller companies to enter that market. Ever heard of Transmeta? Cyrix? Those companies made cheap and capable alternatives to intel chips, yet were easily crushed in the marketplace not due to simple free-market competition, but rather litigation and channel-stuffing.
I would agree that true capitalism is not possible, given that we live in an society where even simple ideas can be patented and given special exclusivity rights. But that's irrelevant to the topic.
Cornelius: I think you're being disingenuous. AMD, Cyrix, and Transmeta all succeeded or failed primarily because of their products. AMD succeeded and basically grabbed half the market because the Athlon came out and kicked late P2s and early P3s right square in the nuts. For a couple years the top of the benchmarks all belonged to AMD and the chips still cost less than the competition. However Cyrix had a reputation for being unreliable because they ran too hot. I never bought them for that reason, and all the techs I knew back then never bought them for that reason. They made a product that a lot of people were afraid to buy, so of course they failed (insofar as they were bought by Via which is still around as the underdog). Transmeta was vaporware for a long time, and when they finally came out with a product it underperformed (especially given the hype). They didn't have a niche because Via was already established in that part of the market. They took too long to produce an overhyped product that nobody needed or wanted, so of course they failed too. Those were all basic market forces.
Dear Darren,
While you are not writing blogs, I sincerely hope you spend your free time inventing some interesting and very valuable technology that you patent (using patent "monkeys" of course - to obtain the strongest patent). Then I hope someone really big and really rich infringes your patent(s). Then lets see how long it is before you go running into the office of some other "monkeys" and sue the infringer to obtain your rightful share of the (mega) profits.
Grow up man. You might not like "monkeys," but "monkeys" are the ones that people go to the nanosecond they feel wronged. Oh, and name calling is so 2nd grade.
Welcome to Engadget ! :)
I just hope AMD starts marketing better, they do make good products for the same price range.
Am I the only one thinking that $1.25 billion is chump change for Intel, they should be able to make that back in a quarter or two.
Game not over yet, the countries that these anti-trust suits will continue, ie the NY case.
AMD will still be called as witnesses. essentially Intel will spin it that they are correcting their wrongs of past so they don't get slapped with billion dollar fines like the EU did.Consumers and countries can still take them to court as could computer manufacturers/ retailers now everyone can smell blood in the water.
Essentially AMD has been given the all clear to let Global Foundries use x86 without breaking their agreement with Intel, Intel will start paying royalties on AMD patents and vice versa.
So I would not say that Intel is grinning from ear to ear while handing over the cash.
AMD (6.52 +1.20 +22.52%) Mkt cap: 4.29B
INTC (19.88 +0.04 +0.20%) Mkt cap: 109.17B
$1.25B is pretty much just random noise to INTC.
Sweet!!!
One word: WOW.
More words: I just hope Intel doesn't have to compensate by raising the prices on chips, that would really suck. Also wonder if this hit will hinder "development and innovation"
"we highly doubt Intel wrote a check this large while grinning from ear-to-ear"
In my opinion, I think Intel would be pretty pleased with the agreement that they have signed with AMD. For $1.25b, Intel has bought:
* settlement for all antitrust and IP disputes with AMD, and
* a 5-year cross license agreement to find out AMDs secrets for the next 5 years.
Yes, the cross license agreement also gives AMD Intel's secrets for the next 5 years, however Intel is the juggernaut with the greater manpower and resources to exploit the cross license agreement to make sure it can trump AMD's secrets. AMD won't have the manpower or resources to trump Intel's secrets in a timely fashion.
I'm not an Intel lover or AMD hater, however this is what I read out of the agreement. I think the community as a whole would suffer if AMD wasn't around, giving Intel an even larger dominance in the market. For me, the question is whether AMD can effectively use the $1.25b to invest in manpower and manufacturing to be a real competitor against Intel.
Yes, this was cheap for Intel.
I guess the problem for AMD here is that they need the money now and Intel knows that too.
I too hope AMD will put the money to good use. Without AMD pushing innovative products our CPUs today wouldn't be nearly as nice. (IE: On chip memory controller).
I'd like to go back in the days when AMD was better and cheaper.
I would seriously like to know why people think Intel is a much better innovator.... AMD created the dual core technology, true 64 bit platform, and on chip cache.... without those patents Intel would be nothing right now. Personally I use both Intel for my laptop and AMD for my desktop because of the longer socket life. We need both of these companies think of it like 2 minds are better than one?
AMD has to figure out a way to leverage their purchase of ATI to create a truly competing product line.
They already are. The graphics side is bigger and better then ever, with only the sky as their limit. As more people start to acknowledge that ATI cards are now good, business will only get better.
The problem with AMD is a combination of marketing and poorly showing products for the CPU side of the company. these problems need to be fixed, before they can even hope to (re)capture the lead.
I am really interested in what patents Intel stole. Have they released that info to the public? Also, I wonder how AMD will use this large infusion of cash. Partly to shore up their lawyer retainer, of course, but if they can use it to speed up the roadmap they just layed out, I wouldn't mind. I would love my next notebook to have an AMD with an ATI APU.
its a vindication of AMD's stand against all the monopolistic behavior from Intel. More than anything else, I'd say the people with the most bitterness would be the lawyers whose job is now reduced!
AMD has been giving outstanding value for money products, and the consumer has to be thankful there's a competition alive. intel alone with cyrix as a distant second would be a disaster. clearly, all of us including the intel fanboys owe their low prices/ great performance benefits to AMD fighting it tooth and nail.
This news made my day. It was about ten years ago when those struggles started. I admit I always parted for AMD.. and at last....
I wonder how much the big lawyers firm got on that?
I was really hoping AMD would receive a lot more than 1.25 Billion; I think the damages Intel done is a bit more than that.
Oh well, at the bright side, at least I am pretty sure AMD will finally have a green quarter this time.
It's cheque not check
AMD, put it all towards Bulldozer then bulldoze the S!@# out of everthing.
Yes! This is excellent! Just the kind of break AMD needs nowadays. I have always and will always continue to be an AMD supporter, and this is just extreme.
Jeez, can I get just $1 million out of that? I'm sure no one will miss it.
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.
like 64-bit computing? you do realize that all 64-bit intel hardware uses AMD's code right?
@peace, like the man above me said...you do realize that x64 architectures would not be possible without AMD right?
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.
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.
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
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.
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.