http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/41909/118/
Annapolis (MD) - Negotiations between AMD and Intel over a 2001 x86 cross-license agreement broke down completely yesterday. The dispute over the recent division of AMD into a fabless semiconductor company and GlobalFoundries, resulted in both companies failing to reach an agreement over licensing terms. As a result, all development and use of x86 extensions held as intellectual property by the other company since the former agreement in 1993 must cease. This unprecedented separation of an entrenched technology base (x86 CPUs) has forced the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene, as it did in the 2000 presidential election.
As the two rivals were unable to come to an agreement, the contract provisions mandate that both parties fall back to the previous 1993 x86 cross-license agreement, which will significantly impact the x86
One analyst noted there are also internal issues relating to the code execution which will now hamper both company's CPU performance. Intel must revert to an off-die memory controller, which will significantly impact its ability to scale in multi-socket server environments. And AMD must stop using the exclusionary cache architecture
Following the news yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court's legal office issued a statement that a failure in negotiations at this level is unacceptable due to the entrenched nature of x86 technology, and the world's reliance on its success. As a result, both companies have been called to a meeting before the justices
Annapolis (MD) - Negotiations between AMD and Intel over a 2001 x86 cross-license agreement broke down completely yesterday. The dispute over the recent division of AMD into a fabless semiconductor company and GlobalFoundries, resulted in both companies failing to reach an agreement over licensing terms. As a result, all development and use of x86 extensions held as intellectual property by the other company since the former agreement in 1993 must cease. This unprecedented separation of an entrenched technology base (x86 CPUs) has forced the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene, as it did in the 2000 presidential election.
As the two rivals were unable to come to an agreement, the contract provisions mandate that both parties fall back to the previous 1993 x86 cross-license agreement, which will significantly impact the x86
One analyst noted there are also internal issues relating to the code execution which will now hamper both company's CPU performance. Intel must revert to an off-die memory controller, which will significantly impact its ability to scale in multi-socket server environments. And AMD must stop using the exclusionary cache architecture
Following the news yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court's legal office issued a statement that a failure in negotiations at this level is unacceptable due to the entrenched nature of x86 technology, and the world's reliance on its success. As a result, both companies have been called to a meeting before the justices
That's one of the main components of the new Core i7 that help it perform like it does.
