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This is great. It's super important to have multiple market players producing CPUs; obviously AMD is not the same company as Intel, but we also really can't aff
by matthewmacleod 9y ago
This is great. It's super important to have multiple market players producing CPUs; obviously AMD is not the same company as Intel, but we also really can't afford to have a monopoly in something as important as CPUs.
- dnautics 9y agodon't forget though that intel owns a sizeable chunk of amd (iirc)
- e1ven 9y agoI've heard that they have a patent cross license agreement, which is why AMD can use x86 and Intel can use AMD64, but I hadn't heard about the ownership. I don't see Intel listed at http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/amd/institutional-holdings http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/amd/institutional-holdings Where do you see they have an ownership stake? How much is it?
- pulse7 9y agoIt was IBM who forced Intel and AMD to sign the agreement. From CNET: "Early 1980s--IBM chooses Intel's so-called x86 chip architecture and the DOS software operating system built by Microsoft. To avoid overdependence on Intel as its sole source of chips, IBM demands that Intel finds it a second supplier. 1982--Intel and AMD sign a technology exchange agreement making AMD a second supplier. The deal gives AMD access to Intel's so-called second-generation "286" chip technology."
- throwaway2048 9y agoYou do not recall correctly.
- dnautics 9y agoactually I do, but it turns out it was not 'sizeable' and it was a long time ago, so it may have been divested by now.
- BeeOnRope 9y agoI don't think so. They certainly don't show up on any of required disclosures of major AMD holders, so if they do hold AMD stock it is less than 1%.
- oatmealsnap 9y agoWhat do you mean by "obviously AMD is not the same company as Intel"?
- matthewmacleod 9y agoI mean that they’re not directly comparable as companies - since AMD is fabless, they’re not competing on process, which I imagine is a huge chunk of Intel’s budget. But I could be wrong!
- epigramx 9y agoWait a second though, AMD and Intel are practically a duopoly on the PC space; they almost fully control the x86_64 patents and they keep patenting more instruction sets every year (in fact the original x86_64 design requires SSE2 and it's not expired yet). Something similar exists for PC GPUs with NVIDIA and AMD. I'm pretty confident the situation wouldn't be that acceptable if all 3 weren't American corporations.