Not to mention that AMD's current state is absolutely perfect for intel - too weak to be a serious threat, yet viable enough so that Intel is not a completely o

Not to mention that AMD's current state is absolutely perfect for intel - too weak to be a serious threat, yet viable enough so that Intel is not a completely obvious monopoly that might attract unwanted regulatory intervention. Even if the licensing problems went away, I'm not sure it's in Intels political/legal interests to lose their only plausible competitor. AMD can't be costing them a lot of money (the real risk is slow irrelevance if ARM usage grows any more), and the risks were AMD to cease operations considerable. That is, until some ARM-based system can at least appear competitive enough to keep justice departments (and powerful negotiating partners like apple) at bay.