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Without knowing any additional details of the agreement, I don't see how Intel will let this slide. The terms of their agreement are mostly likely violated at l

by tcoppi 11y ago

Without knowing any additional details of the agreement, I don't see how Intel will let this slide. The terms of their agreement are mostly likely violated at least in spirit, if not in the letter. Not only that, but it will have to get past export controls that have very recently stopped exports of Intel processors bound for China, I have no doubt they will find a joint venture to develop similar processors an easy target. If it gets past that, I would expect a lengthy lawsuit from Intel. Seems very risky from AMD's perspective.

tcoppi 11y ago
Well according to this other article, Intel and AMD's patent cross-license expired in 2015[1]. I'm not sure if that was the only agreement they had relating to x86 IP, but if so that makes this deal more likely to go through, if they can get past the export controls. 1. http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1329517 http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1329517
- tracker1 11y ago
  I am slightly curious how much actual innovation (new patents) there are since 1996, that would need to be cross licensed by either given company... the bulk of legacy x86 (not x86-64) is expired. Excluding certain extensions.
  - tcoppi 11y ago
    Yeah, I have no idea and I also suspect that very few new patents by either company are directly related to x86. Intel is still one of the most prolific patent recipients though, so one might have to dig through them to see. I suspect they are mostly related to fab design and lithography, though.
  - nickpsecurity 11y ago
    It would be microarchitecture, SOC, or commercial application patents. Even one or two critical ones could be good ammo. I doubt Intel or AMD stopped at 1 or 2, though. ;)
dbcooper 11y ago
EE Times reported the following: http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1329517 http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1329517 >Intel might challenge the AMD deal, however the China partner apparently already has access to the technology. The Intel/AMD cross license was a five year deal that the companies failed to renew in 2015. >The license granted rights “intended to cover only the products of the Licensed Parties.” The heavily redacted document lists a dozen exceptions to its terms, most of them not made public. Intel declined to comment on details of the patent agreement. >“All the technologies licensed [to the China joint venture] are AMD technologies and there are no encumbrances,” said AMD’s Su. “We have closed the deal and have started execution on it,” she added noting she also doesn’t see any regulatory issues. (Recently, U.S. regulators have increased their vigilance in turning down high tech investment proposed by China.) I have seen speculation that many of the relevant x86 patents expired in 2015.
hga 11y ago
Indeed. Here's how the author of the article thinks AMD might skate: Also not immediately obvious is where this falls under the Intel/AMD x86 cross-licensing agreement. AMD has of course done their own research.... In the meantime and at first glance, because this is a joint venture, it would appear that AMD is in the clear here as they aren’t giving the technology to another business, but rather are using it as part of a new line of products they are developing, albeit in conjunction with an outside firm.
mtgx 11y ago
According to this article, those license terms were mutual, and Intel has already been selling its Atom IP to Rockchip and others. http://www.extremetech.com/computing/227059-amd-announces-new-293-million-joint-venture-to-build-servers-for-the-chinese-market http://www.extremetech.com/computing/227059-amd-announces-ne... Also, another thing that everyone points out when there's a discussion about AMD being acquired, is that "Intel wouldn't allow it" because of that clause in the license agreement. I think that argument makes no sense. The only reason Intel hasn't completely crushed AMD so far (which it could've done by keeping prices low until it eliminated AMD) in the market, is because it doesn't want to remain a monopoly in the PC market. You think Google has it bad in the EU right now? It would be far worse for Intel (which already got fined $1.5 billion in the EU for anti-competitive practices against AMD). The second reason why it doesn't make sense is that AMD owns the 64-bit ISA rights. I'm guessing Intel would still need that to operate in all markets except IoT... So to end that argument once and for all - of course Intel would allow AMD to be acquired, one way or another. Worst case scenario, whoever acquires AMD would have to pay slightly higher royalties to Intel for the next 5 years. Getting back on point, as the ExtremeTech post mentions, it's likely this is only IP that AMD alone owns anyway.
- tcoppi 11y ago
  I'm not sure anymore that EMT64 actually relies on any AMD IP, if articles are correct and the Intel-AMD cross-licensing agreement expired last year. Intel has basically had a de-facto monopoly on the PC and server space for the past 5+ years so I don't really buy that argument either. The buyout pressure was real enough when AMD was splitting into AMD + GloFo that Abu Dhabi couldn't buy a controlling stake in AMD, much to their chagrin. That might be null now if there really is no more agreement, in which case I would be surprised if there was NOT a buyout offer in the next few years. Edit: Also, as far as I can see from googling, the Rockchip deal doesn't actually exchange any IP, it simply allows them to customize existing Atom cores into SoCs.
- phkahler 11y ago
  >> The second reason why it doesn't make sense is that AMD owns the 64-bit ISA rights. I'm guessing Intel would still need that to operate in all markets except IoT... It would be interesting to see a chip that dropped support for the legacy instruction sets. If a server is running software fully built as 64bit, how much IP could be dropped from the underlying design? There may also be a bit of performance on the table for doing that as well, but probably not much. Certainly no significant die area savings these days.
cptskippy 11y ago
All of their cross licensing agreements are private so everything is speculation. That being said... In 2009 AMD divested itself of it's manufacturing arm by spinning it off into GlobalFoundries (GF) which was a joint venture with Advanced Technology Investment Company (ATIC). Intel sued AMD, GF, and ATIC for violation of the terms of AMD and Intel's prior cross licensing agreements. Later that year Intel and AMD entered into a Settlement Agreement to halt several on going lawsuits both parties had against each other. The AMD/GF/ATIC lawsuit was one of those that was part of the settlement agreement. Under section 4 of the settlement agreement are the mutual releases each company agreed to. Section 4.2 is Intel's release and it states the following. 4.2 Intel Release. Except for the rights and obligations expressly created or reserved by this Agreement and by the agreements described in Section 3.7, Intel does hereby irrevocably release, acquit and forever discharge AMD, GF and ATIC from any and all Claims that Intel ever had, now has or hereafter may acquire against AMD, GF and ATIC, whether known or unknown, on account of any action, inaction, matter, thing or event, that occurred or failed to occur at any time in the past, from the beginning of time through and including the Effective Date, including, without limitation, any and all Claims based on or arising out of, in whole or in part, the Actions or the facts underlying the Actions and any claims that could have been raised in the Actions up to the Effective Date. All third parties included within the scope of the preceding release, pursuant to Section 1.4, are expressly agreed to be third-party beneficiaries of this Agreement. It seems somewhat relevant to today's announcement as it seems to release AMD from litigation for any future joint ventures it might partake in. However I'm not a lawyer and it's entirely possible that I'm miss reading this.
- tcoppi 11y ago
  Good info! This seems to confirm what some other sources are saying about the license agreement being null as of last year, and opens the floodgates to this sort of deal, as well as real buyouts of AMD. I'm very surprised this hasn't been more widely reported, though I can see why both parties wouldn't want this to necessarily be in the public eye until it benefited them most. It is also possible I missed the reporting on it when it came out. In any case, thanks!
- iamgopal 11y ago
  Someone should really work towards making legal document as a testing framework against which user can send a query of an action and the output of query should be if action is allowed by that document or not. :)

by tcoppi 11y ago

tcoppi 11y ago

Well according to this other article, Intel and AMD's patent cross-license expired in 2015[1]. I'm not sure if that was the only agreement they had relating to x86 IP, but if so that makes this deal more likely to go through, if they can get past the export controls. 1. http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1329517 http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1329517

tracker1 11y ago
I am slightly curious how much actual innovation (new patents) there are since 1996, that would need to be cross licensed by either given company... the bulk of legacy x86 (not x86-64) is expired. Excluding certain extensions.
- tcoppi 11y ago
  Yeah, I have no idea and I also suspect that very few new patents by either company are directly related to x86. Intel is still one of the most prolific patent recipients though, so one might have to dig through them to see. I suspect they are mostly related to fab design and lithography, though.
- nickpsecurity 11y ago
  It would be microarchitecture, SOC, or commercial application patents. Even one or two critical ones could be good ammo. I doubt Intel or AMD stopped at 1 or 2, though. ;)

dbcooper 11y ago

EE Times reported the following: http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1329517 http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1329517 >Intel might challenge the AMD deal, however the China partner apparently already has access to the technology. The Intel/AMD cross license was a five year deal that the companies failed to renew in 2015. >The license granted rights “intended to cover only the products of the Licensed Parties.” The heavily redacted document lists a dozen exceptions to its terms, most of them not made public. Intel declined to comment on details of the patent agreement. >“All the technologies licensed [to the China joint venture] are AMD technologies and there are no encumbrances,” said AMD’s Su. “We have closed the deal and have started execution on it,” she added noting she also doesn’t see any regulatory issues. (Recently, U.S. regulators have increased their vigilance in turning down high tech investment proposed by China.) I have seen speculation that many of the relevant x86 patents expired in 2015.

hga 11y ago

Indeed. Here's how the author of the article thinks AMD might skate: Also not immediately obvious is where this falls under the Intel/AMD x86 cross-licensing agreement. AMD has of course done their own research.... In the meantime and at first glance, because this is a joint venture, it would appear that AMD is in the clear here as they aren’t giving the technology to another business, but rather are using it as part of a new line of products they are developing, albeit in conjunction with an outside firm.

mtgx 11y ago

According to this article, those license terms were mutual, and Intel has already been selling its Atom IP to Rockchip and others. http://www.extremetech.com/computing/227059-amd-announces-new-293-million-joint-venture-to-build-servers-for-the-chinese-market http://www.extremetech.com/computing/227059-amd-announces-ne... Also, another thing that everyone points out when there's a discussion about AMD being acquired, is that "Intel wouldn't allow it" because of that clause in the license agreement. I think that argument makes no sense. The only reason Intel hasn't completely crushed AMD so far (which it could've done by keeping prices low until it eliminated AMD) in the market, is because it doesn't want to remain a monopoly in the PC market. You think Google has it bad in the EU right now? It would be far worse for Intel (which already got fined $1.5 billion in the EU for anti-competitive practices against AMD). The second reason why it doesn't make sense is that AMD owns the 64-bit ISA rights. I'm guessing Intel would still need that to operate in all markets except IoT... So to end that argument once and for all - of course Intel would allow AMD to be acquired, one way or another. Worst case scenario, whoever acquires AMD would have to pay slightly higher royalties to Intel for the next 5 years. Getting back on point, as the ExtremeTech post mentions, it's likely this is only IP that AMD alone owns anyway.

tcoppi 11y ago
I'm not sure anymore that EMT64 actually relies on any AMD IP, if articles are correct and the Intel-AMD cross-licensing agreement expired last year. Intel has basically had a de-facto monopoly on the PC and server space for the past 5+ years so I don't really buy that argument either. The buyout pressure was real enough when AMD was splitting into AMD + GloFo that Abu Dhabi couldn't buy a controlling stake in AMD, much to their chagrin. That might be null now if there really is no more agreement, in which case I would be surprised if there was NOT a buyout offer in the next few years. Edit: Also, as far as I can see from googling, the Rockchip deal doesn't actually exchange any IP, it simply allows them to customize existing Atom cores into SoCs.
phkahler 11y ago
>> The second reason why it doesn't make sense is that AMD owns the 64-bit ISA rights. I'm guessing Intel would still need that to operate in all markets except IoT... It would be interesting to see a chip that dropped support for the legacy instruction sets. If a server is running software fully built as 64bit, how much IP could be dropped from the underlying design? There may also be a bit of performance on the table for doing that as well, but probably not much. Certainly no significant die area savings these days.

cptskippy 11y ago

All of their cross licensing agreements are private so everything is speculation. That being said... In 2009 AMD divested itself of it's manufacturing arm by spinning it off into GlobalFoundries (GF) which was a joint venture with Advanced Technology Investment Company (ATIC). Intel sued AMD, GF, and ATIC for violation of the terms of AMD and Intel's prior cross licensing agreements. Later that year Intel and AMD entered into a Settlement Agreement to halt several on going lawsuits both parties had against each other. The AMD/GF/ATIC lawsuit was one of those that was part of the settlement agreement. Under section 4 of the settlement agreement are the mutual releases each company agreed to. Section 4.2 is Intel's release and it states the following. 4.2 Intel Release. Except for the rights and obligations expressly created or reserved by this Agreement and by the agreements described in Section 3.7, Intel does hereby irrevocably release, acquit and forever discharge AMD, GF and ATIC from any and all Claims that Intel ever had, now has or hereafter may acquire against AMD, GF and ATIC, whether known or unknown, on account of any action, inaction, matter, thing or event, that occurred or failed to occur at any time in the past, from the beginning of time through and including the Effective Date, including, without limitation, any and all Claims based on or arising out of, in whole or in part, the Actions or the facts underlying the Actions and any claims that could have been raised in the Actions up to the Effective Date. All third parties included within the scope of the preceding release, pursuant to Section 1.4, are expressly agreed to be third-party beneficiaries of this Agreement. It seems somewhat relevant to today's announcement as it seems to release AMD from litigation for any future joint ventures it might partake in. However I'm not a lawyer and it's entirely possible that I'm miss reading this.

tcoppi 11y ago
Good info! This seems to confirm what some other sources are saying about the license agreement being null as of last year, and opens the floodgates to this sort of deal, as well as real buyouts of AMD. I'm very surprised this hasn't been more widely reported, though I can see why both parties wouldn't want this to necessarily be in the public eye until it benefited them most. It is also possible I missed the reporting on it when it came out. In any case, thanks!
iamgopal 11y ago
Someone should really work towards making legal document as a testing framework against which user can send a query of an action and the output of query should be if action is allowed by that document or not. :)