Intel is making waves about AMD's split-up

It'll be very interesting either way to see how this pans out.
 
AMD did break the contract, but it's not like Intel can really do anything. What are they gonna do?

Take away AMD's x86 license? Then Intel will have no major competition, and in case you didn't notice, the congress and the president are all Dems. They aren't going to stand for a monopoly like that.

Intel also wants to discuss if AMD's 2006 acquisition of graphics card maker ATI qualifies as a "change of control" for the company, and therefore violates the pact as well.
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Sounds like pure FUD to me. How long has AMD owned ATI? TWO TO THREE YEARS! And now all of a sudden Intel decides to give a shit about ATI+AMD? You don't wait years and not do anything, and then come back when someone else is ready to make a power move and hold shit over their head like that.
 
Sounds like Intels legal division is trying to find an excuse to keep itself employed.
 
but if Intel took away their x86 lisense, then would it not also affect the AMD patents that intel is using?
 
Yup. Funny that AMD and Intel still more or less cooperate with each other in some areas of research and info. and whatever. The world and us humans are just plain weird.
 
ninerfan said:
but if Intel took away their x86 lisense, then would it not also affect the AMD patents that intel is using?
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Actually no. I've posted the link to the (redacted) licence text several times before. If AMD breaks the licence, it is terminated and Intel gets to keep using anything it got from AMD, but AMD does not get to keep using anything licensed from Intel, effectively ending AMD's x86 CPU business (and likely all other business too).

It looks like AMD is choosing to ignore the meeting request with Intel, and for good reasons. There is nothing beneficial gained for AMD by going, and it would give Intel a lot of preparation to use against AMD to challenge AMD's adherence to the agreement.

And for those of you who think Intel would never yank AMD's x86 licence, have a look at history (note the additional complications if another company were to buy AMD, snicker snicker): http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0CGN/is_1999_July_1/ai_55048036
 
Im tellin' ya... AMD could can the x86, team up with Apple, and destroy. With that kind of pull, you would see major game titles jumping from Windows to Mac, and they could abandon the x86 liscence all together. Apple needs its own mfg... AMD needs to get out from under intel's domination (let them have x86... create a new market, with new kick-ass hardware to match based on ATI/AMD stuff... with a kick-butt OS as well... not some windows POS.

The cool thing is, this would make intel a monopoly, yes. But many misunderstand monopoly laws... monopolies ARE allowed in the US, but then they are prevented from branching out into other markets... thats all. So if AMD left x86, Intel would be a monopoly, yes... government wouldnt do anything... legit, etc... but then AMD could move to a Mac (non x86) platform, and intel would get screwed because it wouldnt be allowed to compete against AMD/Apple unless it dumped x86 as well (because as a monopoly, it would be restricted from branching into other markets). Intel would be stuck with Microsoft Windows, and AMD would gain a kick-butt OS... the 'spider platform' would move to Mac. It would kinda kick butt when you think about it. Just imagine... an actual graphics based OS for gaming.
 
undertheradar said:
Im tellin' ya... AMD could can the x86, team up with Apple, and destroy. With that kind of pull, you would see major game titles jumping from Windows to Mac, and they could abandon the x86 liscence all together. Apple needs its own mfg... AMD needs to get out from under intel's domination (let them have x86... create a new market, with new kick-ass hardware to match based on ATI/AMD stuff... with a kick-butt OS as well... not some windows POS.

The cool thing is, this would make intel a monopoly, yes. But many misunderstand monopoly laws... monopolies ARE allowed in the US, but then they are prevented from branching out into other markets... thats all. So if AMD left x86, Intel would be a monopoly, yes... government wouldnt do anything... legit, etc... but then AMD could move to a Mac (non x86) platform, and intel would get screwed because it wouldnt be allowed to compete against AMD/Apple unless it dumped x86 as well (because as a monopoly, it would be restricted from branching into other markets). Intel would be stuck with Microsoft Windows, and AMD would gain a kick-butt OS... the 'spider platform' would move to Mac. It would kinda kick butt when you think about it. Just imagine... an actual graphics based OS for gaming.
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No one would move to anything AMD and apple makes. Intel has the majority of the market share already. Its not 50/50 between the two. Apple already has some agreements with intel to use its chips, and I doubt they are going to redo their entire computer product line because AMD needs to stay in buisness.

Furthermore windows NT was capable of running on the powerpc architecture, so its not unfathomable that microsoft would make windows 7 and up run on this new chip you propose. However the masses are quite content with running winders on thier dell harrddrive/modem, so its again unlikely.
 
AMD could make the most awesomest processor in the universe and if there isn't software for it it won't matter. Hardware lets you run software that lets you actually do something. Without software hardware is irrelevant (and the other way around too). If you assumed 100% of Apple people embrased the new chip - it's still far less people than AMD serves now in x86. Also Microsoft pulled non-x86 versions of Windows IIRC because of a few reasons which included the added expense of running dual development teams for various architectures and shrinking demand of those non 86 platforms.
 
JayteeBates said:
AMD could make the most awesomest processor in the universe and if there isn't software for it it won't matter. Hardware lets you run software that lets you actually do something. Without software hardware is irrelevant (and the other way around too). If you assumed 100% of Apple people embrased the new chip - it's still far less people than AMD serves now in x86. Also Microsoft pulled non-x86 versions of Windows IIRC because of a few reasons which included the added expense of running dual development teams for various architectures and shrinking demand of those non 86 platforms.
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That is why AMD should have embraced the Linux folks when the OS started to gain traction and actively supported it. If enough support ($$$ *and* pro design help) was put into Linux when its name started crossing everyone's tongues then Linux could very well be a major platform now instead of being in the marginalized state that it's in. The Linux (and other open source) folks are notoriously cheap with software, but they will spend an ungodly amount of money on hardware - and they don't care about x86. AMD could have had all of that money if they hadn't been blinded by its (30 years now) x86 production, which is why they'll always be Intel's bitch.
 
My idea was that AMD could get in bed with Apple, and while that might not mean a huge market share overnight, AMD would be able to get out of its gridlock with intel and create a new market with the help of Apple. Im no Apple-fanboy, but I gotta call it: that OS is kick-butt. With the combined 'pull' of such a team up, Im sure they could attract various game/software developers to sign on and create a competitor to DX/OpenGL. Just imagine, a graphics engine actually running on a machine designed to run graphics from the ground up (Apple). Lets face it, its easier for a graphics machine to run word and other non-challenging PC based apps than the other way around. I think it would be a kick-butt enough team up (along with ATI) that many would be willing to adopt. The other main hurdle for Apple to go mainstream is its cost... but with an 'in house' maker (rather than liscencing out to the likes of foxconn), costs could be lowered.
 
What will they do after 60 days? Declare that AMD is producing X86 without license? AMD will just claim that they did nothing wrong and still have the license. What's next? Intel file a lawsuit against AMD? How long will it end? It doesn't matter how it will end, just the fact that Intel is suing AMD for the license will not be a good thing in Intel's anti monopoly case.
 
alg7_munif said:
What will they do after 60 days? Declare that AMD is producing X86 without license?
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Yup, which could mean that AMD has to stop all shipments of x86 processors pending the outcome of the court case (just as the Am386 wasn't allowed to ship until AMD finally got a cross-license deal with Intel).

I'm quite sure this is going to court. Intel has a very good point, the license terms can be found online, and they cover the fact that the license cannot be transferred to another company (not even if it is partially owned by AMD).
And AMD seems to deny this, so they're not going to take any action.
 
This is EXACTLY why I've always ignored intel products since the birth of the 1st athlon in mid99. intel is just being a bunch of dicks, as they always have; all they care about is making money; most companies at least have some degree of interest in trying to satisfy the customer and intel has a zero percent interest in giving the customer a reasonable price.

No one could say in their right mind that AMD is the same; 3 clear indications was they didn't become egocentric over their brand name like intel did w/ intel inside. intel always paid popular oems and retailers not to sell amd's products, amd didn't; when the 64's and the x2 were performance dominant and thermally dominant over the pentium 4's and d's, they were mad more inexpensive than the POS intel competitors; AMD also doesn't have a CPU that's at least $300 over priced that's been out since november that no one needs; further amd's 45W x2's go for $59.99; great for most average users; not only does intel have expensive base-line products compared to amd, intel products don't scale nearly as good in price to performance.

And in intel's press releases they always claim they have a superior product that is better than all the rest; while true much of the time, they never indicate that they're making a superior product to satisfy the customer, but rather when they claim they have a superior product, it's simply due to bragging rights.

Unfortunately, most people have a performance principle, while I stand by my principles to not support people that try do little more than try to rip people off.
 
Scali2 said:
Yup, which could mean that AMD has to stop all shipments of x86 processors pending the outcome of the court case (just as the Am386 wasn't allowed to ship until AMD finally got a cross-license deal with Intel).

I'm quite sure this is going to court. Intel has a very good point, the license terms can be found online, and they cover the fact that the license cannot be transferred to another company (not even if it is partially owned by AMD).
And AMD seems to deny this, so they're not going to take any action.
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Technically AMD still has a x86 license now so they can still ship x86 CPUs, not like Am386 when they had no license. The license is still valid until 2011 unless the court says otherwise. It is just Intel that claims the agreement is broken while AMD claims that the Globalfoundry is just a subsidary of their company. The court needs to decide whether the agreement is still valid or not, there is no issue of AMD producing CPUs without a license. Imo the agreement will still be valid until the court decides that it is not valid anymore.
 
alg7_munif said:
Technically AMD still has a x86 license now so they can still ship x86 CPUs, not like Am386 when they had no license.
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Not true.
AMD did have a license, the dispute with Intel was about whether or not the license allowed AMD to produce and sell 386 processors. AMD said it did, Intel said it didn't.
But AMD couldn't actually sell the CPUs until the court settled the issue.
This is the basically same situation. AMD says they are allowed to outsource production, Intel says they aren't.
So I wouldn't be surprised if they were again forced to stop shipping their CPUs until the matter is settled.

Basically, after the 60 days are over, Intel terminates the license agreement.
That is not a claim, it's terminated. Then it's up to AMD to prove that Intel didn't have the right to terminate the agreement... all the while not having a license.
 
no2censorship said:
This is EXACTLY why I've always ignored intel products since the birth of the 1st athlon in mid99. intel is just being a bunch of dicks, as they always have; all they care about is making money; most companies at least have some degree of interest in trying to satisfy the customer and intel has a zero percent interest in giving the customer a reasonable price.

No one could say in their right mind that AMD is the same; 3 clear indications was they didn't become egocentric over their brand name like intel did w/ intel inside. intel always paid popular oems and retailers not to sell amd's products, amd didn't; when the 64's and the x2 were performance dominant and thermally dominant over the pentium 4's and d's, they were mad more inexpensive than the POS intel competitors; AMD also doesn't have a CPU that's at least $300 over priced that's been out since november that no one needs; further amd's 45W x2's go for $59.99; great for most average users; not only does intel have expensive base-line products compared to amd, intel products don't scale nearly as good in price to performance.

And in intel's press releases they always claim they have a superior product that is better than all the rest; while true much of the time, they never indicate that they're making a superior product to satisfy the customer, but rather when they claim they have a superior product, it's simply due to bragging rights.

Unfortunately, most people have a performance principle, while I stand by my principles to not support people that try do little more than try to rip people off.
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Wow. You feel better?
 
AMD say that they are not outsourcing the production, they are doing it through a subsidary. Btw it is a cross licensing agreement, you cannot just terminate the agreement without losing the license from the other party unless the other party did something that will void the agreement. The court will decide whether any party did void the agreement or not, until then the license will be valid unless Intel opted to terminate it and lose any licensing from AMD.

Scali2 said:
Official Intel statement on the matter:
http://www.intel.com/pressroom/archive/releases/20090316corp.htm
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SANTA CLARA, Calif. March 16, 2009 - Intel Corporation today disclosed that the company has notified Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) that it believes AMD has breached a 2001 patent cross-license agreement with Intel. Intel believes that Global Foundries is not a subsidiary under terms of the agreement and is therefore not licensed under the 2001 patent cross-license agreement. Intel also said the structure of the deal between AMD and ATIC breaches a confidential portion of that agreement. Intel has asked AMD to make the relevant portion of the agreement public, but so far AMD has declined to do so. AMD's breach could result in the loss of licenses and rights granted to AMD by Intel under the agreement.
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Under terms of the license agreement the notification to AMD means the parties will attempt to resolve the dispute through mediation. In response to the notification AMD claimed Intel breached the agreement by notifying AMD of its breach. Intel believes that position is inconsistent with the dispute resolution process outlined in the original agreement.
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no2censorship said:
This is EXACTLY why I've always ignored intel products since the birth of the 1st athlon in mid99. intel is just being a bunch of dicks, as they always have; all they care about is making money; most companies at least have some degree of interest in trying to satisfy the customer and intel has a zero percent interest in giving the customer a reasonable price.
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That's pure FANBOY speak right there. I'll give you a hint, the whole point of a for-profit business is PROFIT. Believe me, AMD would do the exact same thing as Intel if it was in the position to do so. And believe it or not, the market sets Intel's and AMD's prices. The shareholders wouldn't have it any other way.
 
alg7_munif said:
AMD say that they are not outsourcing the production, they are doing it through a subsidary. Btw it is a cross licensing agreement, you cannot just terminate the agreement without losing the license from the other party unless the other party did something that will void the agreement. The court will decide whether any party did void the agreement or not, until then the license will be valid unless Intel opted to terminate it and lose any licensing from AMD.
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I think you aren't paying Intel's lawyers enough credit.
They've already thought out these scenario's.
The mediation process is actually a clause in the license agreement for when there is a possible breach/dispute.
"Intel believes that position is inconsistent with the dispute resolution process outlined in the original agreement."
Intel says they've been trying to mediate the situation since October last year, but AMD isn't responding. Which in itself is a breach, hence the ultimatum that Intel is now putting out.
The whole thing with subsidiaries and such is also in the license agreement. AMD only owns 44% of the foundry anyway, so AMD would have a hard time to even defend that the foundry is a subsidiary of them.

Likewise, if AMD breaches the agreement, the terms of the agreement grant Intel free use of all of AMD's licensed IP.
This also goes for Intel by the way, so if AMD can prove that it is not AMD, but in fact Intel that breached the agreement, then AMD will have free use of x86.
 
Scali2 said:
Official Intel statement on the matter:
http://www.intel.com/pressroom/archive/releases/20090316corp.htm
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Basically, I have no idea in hell amd could've violated ATI's wishes; what could they possibly have done that ATI said was against their wishes in the merging contract?

Not only are they beating nvidia at sales in GPUs, they eventually beat nvidia in the northbridge market and their northbridges run cooler than intel's do, to my knowledge.

AMD never forced ati to change their lousy filtering nor to quit cutting features from previous HW each new gen; ATI still has the same monthly driver schedule they've had since 2002, the same brand name they've had since 2000. They're products are exactly the same (proportional to time) of how they've been since the 9700 pro, 3 years before they were acquired by AMD. If I'm not mistaken, they laid off at least 3x as many AMD employees as original ATI employees. If AMD violated any of the contract with ATI, it's got to be so minor that ATI obviously hasn't cared enough to file suit; or if they agreed that ATI couldn't file suit in the contract if they wanted to break away again, then it wouldn't matter what amd is doing, as ATI would've agreed not to file suit if they signed it.

Their would at least be some well-known rumors about original ATI employees pissed off at AMD after they merged.

I have to admit I think that it was a mistake of AMD to switch to another source for their manufacturing (in the long run), but damn, this is a prime example of why I favor anarchy, so that people like intel couldn't constantly abuse the legal system for their own benefit.

What the hell does Intel have to lose if they didn't file a lawsuit against nvidia and now amd? That's more proof that all they care about is making money and wiping out the competition so they'll have the unconditional guarantee to make the claim that they're the lead of silicon valley.
 
Scali2 said:
I think you aren't paying Intel's lawyers enough credit.
They've already thought out these scenario's.
The mediation process is actually a clause in the license agreement for when there is a possible breach/dispute.
"Intel believes that position is inconsistent with the dispute resolution process outlined in the original agreement."
Intel says they've been trying to mediate the situation since October last year, but AMD isn't responding. Which in itself is a breach, hence the ultimatum that Intel is now putting out.
The whole thing with subsidiaries and such is also in the license agreement. AMD only owns 44% of the foundry anyway, so AMD would have a hard time to even defend that the foundry is a subsidiary of them.

Likewise, if AMD breaches the agreement, the terms of the agreement grant Intel free use of all of AMD's licensed IP.
This also goes for Intel by the way, so if AMD can prove that it is not AMD, but in fact Intel that breached the agreement, then AMD will have free use of x86.
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Too bad that they are just lawyers, they cannot decide whether the agreement is breached or not. They can try to resolve the dispute through a mediation or they can bring the matter to the court to decide whether the agreement was breached or not for whatever reason. They cannot just terminate the license without the risk of losing the license from AMD because the action itself will be a breach of the agreement.
 
alg7_munif said:
Too bad that they are just lawyers, they cannot decide whether the agreement is breached or not.
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Ofcourse they can. I'm talking about the lawyers that originally compiled the license agreement. These are the ones that decided when an agreement would be breached.
As such, Intel has a pretty strong position now... The license agreement has thought of pretty much anything.
 
Scali2 said:
Ofcourse they can. I'm talking about the lawyers that originally compiled the license agreement. These are the ones that decided when an agreement would be breached.
As such, Intel has a pretty strong position now... The license agreement has thought of pretty much anything.
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Lol, that is the funniest thing that I've ever read. What power do they have? What will they do? Issue a statement like this?

"We, a bunched of highly paid Intel laywers, declare that AMD has breached the cross license agreement and because of this, we will stop AMD from producing anymore x86 CPUs and all of their IPs will be in our hand"

AMD lawyers, on the other hand, will laugh their ass out and if they are smart enough, they will bring the case to the court for the court to decide whether the action by Intel lawyers has breached the agreement or not. In the mean time they will continue to produce more x86 CPUs and what can Intel do? Send their security guards to stop the lorries from leaving AMD's factories to stop the shipment?

What Intel lawyers can really do is bring the matter to the court for the court to decide whether the agreement was breached for whatever reason or not. The fact is, it is already march 2009 and 60 days from now, it will be may 2009. If the matter is brought to the court, I'm sure that it will take a lot of time and I'm pretty sure that during the hearing, the agreement will still be considered valid or both companies must stop using each other IPs until a decision is made.
 
alg7_munif said:
Lol, that is the funniest thing that I've ever read. What power do they have? What will they do? Issue a statement like this?
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You don't get it. I mean that they put in a lot of clauses relating to third parties and subsidiaries. AMD agreed with all those clauses, and now they breached at least one of them.
My point is that because of all the clauses that Intel's lawyers came up with when compiling the agreement, they won't have too much trouble proving that AMD is in violation. AMD's position is very weak, they agreed with those clauses.
 
Scali2 said:
You don't get it. I mean that they put in a lot of clauses relating to third parties and subsidiaries. AMD agreed with all those clauses, and now they breached at least one of them.
My point is that because of all the clauses that Intel's lawyers came up with when compiling the agreement, they won't have too much trouble proving that AMD is in violation. AMD's position is very weak, they agreed with those clauses.
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Even if they could win the case, how long will it take and during that period, the agreement would still be considered valid so they can't stop AMD from selling x86 chips yet.
 
I'd like to see these what licenses are about exactly. If it's about whether or not AMD can make x86-compatible and Intel x86-64-compatible CPUs, then it's pure bollocks, as you can't patent and/or license a bloody API. Now if we're talking about production method patents and stuff, that I could somewhat agree with.

AMD has a cross-license deal with IBM as well, which is where they get most of their fancy production methods from.
 
alg7_munif said:
Even if they could win the case, how long will it take and during that period, the agreement would still be considered valid so they can't stop AMD from selling x86 chips yet.
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It might not even be a case of winning or losing. The bad publicity for AMD and the costs of the lawsuit alone might be enough to kill off AMD before the case even comes to a decision.
Aside from that, you already know that I don't agree that Intel can't stop AMD from selling x86 chips. We went over that, I provided historic evidence.
 
Elledan said:
I'd like to see these what licenses are about exactly. If it's about whether or not AMD can make x86-compatible and Intel x86-64-compatible CPUs, then it's pure bollocks, as you can't patent and/or license a bloody API. Now if we're talking about production method patents and stuff, that I could somewhat agree with.
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Again, it's not an API, it's an instructionset. At least get your facts straight.
And it's not about the instructionset itself, but rather the microcode and patents involved with the technology used in an x86 implementation.
 
This has a good explanation of x86-64, and has mention of the licensing arrangement between Intel & AMD.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X64

Whether you prefer Intel or AMD, it is just silly to be so frothing-at-the-mouth mad to see a company fail. It doesn't benefit anyone really, especially when there is only one company left to run the whole market.
 
Reus said:
This has a good explanation of x86-64, and has mention of the licensing arrangement between Intel & AMD.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X64
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Bottom line is that x86 is a complete ISA, where x86-64 is an extension of an ISA.
You can make x86 CPUs without x86-64, but you can't make x86-64 CPUs without x86.
If push comes to shove, Intel can simply disable the 64-bit mode on their CPUs and continue business as usual. Since most people are still stuck in 32-bit land anyway, it's not going to make much of a difference. Then Intel can just develop an alternative 64-bit implementation, or promote their Itanium, or just buy the rights to AMD's x86-64.
AMD will have to stop producing CPUs altogether. And AMD is not large enough to make a different CPU architecture a success.
 
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