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Historically speaking, I'm not sure if Intel ever -wanted- to license x86. The main reason that AMD (and others) manufactured x86 CPUs early on was because IBM

Historically speaking, I'm not sure if Intel ever -wanted- to license x86. The main reason that AMD (and others) manufactured x86 CPUs early on was because IBM had a 'second source' requirement; i.e. there had to be another vendor who could provide the same part. So an AMD 286 was no different from an Intel 286. By the time of the 386, IBM had relaxed/dropped the second-source requirement. Thus the Am386 isn't the same design as the i386 (and there was a court battle to try to keep the AMD part out of the market.) tl;dr - Intel never wanted to license at all.

rasz 6y ago
Am386 was reverse engineered design, but microcode was 1:1 Intel copy :). There was no court battle over this chip. Intel was forced into arbitration due to second source agreements, and lost. Court battle was over 287 and later Am486. AMD announced clean-room design ... and gave their clean room engineers 386 microcode copy :] https://www.sec.gov/litigation/admin/3437730.txt https://www.sec.gov/litigation/admin/3437730.txt