AMD slings mud at Intel

Robert Hallock 23 Jan, 2009 at 11:14am ET Article published in Tech

As both companies spiral into the inescapable mire of the current economy, tensions are clearly running high. AMD CEO Dirk Meyer recently took the time during a press and analyst call to lash out at Intel for their x86 sabre rattling.

Not only is Intel continuing to claim that AMD cannot transfer their x86 license to The Foundry Company, Chipzilla now wishes to pick through AMD’s ATI acquisition as well. Intel alleges that ATI’s defection to the AMD camp represents a “transfer of control” which would void any Intel licenses contained in their IP portfolio.

To round out the evening, Meyer swore that AMD’s as yet unnamed not-netbook-but-not-ultra-portable notebooks would crush the Atom.

In other news, what should we name these new AMD notebooks? Smaller than an ultra-portable and bigger than a netbook. Hm…

Comments

23 Jan 2009 ~ 1:36pm Leonardo Intel may have a case concerning X86 privileged information. AMD itself only has a minority ownership in the "The Foundry." The ATI argument though, that's just bunkum.
23 Jan 2009 ~ 1:53pm MiracleManS Yeah, but the fact is that if Intel follows through, AMD goes "lol 64bit" and takes it away.

It really DOES feel like sabre rattling.
23 Jan 2009 ~ 1:56pm Thrax Indeed, Leo, Intel can be blustery, but AMD wields the complete x86-64 specification in their portfolio. If Intel took x86, AMD could put Intel's CPU architecture back almost a full decade.

Nobody would win, so nobody is going to lose either.
23 Jan 2009 ~ 11:19pm RWB Dunno about almost a decade but 5 years maybe and only if they haven't actually begun work on their own arcetecture. It would make an annoyance sure, but I think they have the money and research capacity that would likely win out in the end.
24 Jan 2009 ~ 12:05am Thrax No way. Intel would have to scrap every x86-64 cpu they"ve made. That would put them back to the first Pentium IV chips. It would be bad.
24 Jan 2009 ~ 12:23am Leonardo

but AMD wields the complete x86-64 specification in their portfolio

...just a minor little fact...OH, M A J O R fact that I had forgotten.

Nope, Intel ain't gonna follow through! LOL
24 Jan 2009 ~ 3:34pm QCH Same concept that kept USA and USSR at bay... M.A.D mutual assured destruction.
25 Jan 2009 ~ 3:35am DrLiam Interesting article. Thanks for sharing. (Even though I'm not sure what it's all about exactly. More research is required for me I guess. :P )
26 Jan 2009 ~ 12:58am Tushon

MiracleManS wrote:

AMD goes "lol 64bit" and takes it away.

I definitely chuckled for a good 30 seconds after seeing this and reading the comments. Saber rattling indeed; methinks that AMD would win that fight if the companies decided to rip their IP back. 64 is (and has been) the way of the future and I don't know why we even develop for x86. I'm sure someone can correct me in a later comment. The limits of x32 are just too great. 4GB ram max, lesser throughput than x64 chips (i think , not too mention that AMD processors have IMCs ... Intel finally got around to it with i7).

Anyways, just my two cents.
26 Jan 2009 ~ 8:43am Annes Welcome to IC, natravis
26 Jan 2009 ~ 11:39am AlexDeGruven This is rather funny when you look at the implications. Though, if Intel did decide to pursue the revocation of AMD's rights to x86, I agree that AMD would still fare better than Intel in the end.

32-bit environments are going away at an ever-increasing rate, and developers are switching to 64-bit to match. While not being able to include x86 code in their next processors would definitely hurt AMD in the short term, I don't think we'll see companies like Microsoft and Linux vendors stopping their x86_64 development just to help out the now-crippled Intel.
26 Jan 2009 ~ 11:51am Thrax No, AMD wouldn't fare better in the end. AMD would be ruined.

The x86-64 spec is a register/instruction extension of Intel's x86 spec. If Intel revoked the x86 license, AMD would be left with a expansion to a home that's been demolished. Clearly that would not work well for you or I, nor would it work well for AMD.

Intel, on the other hand, once dabbled in the establishment of their own x64 spec before Microsoft flatly refused to support it. If you're interested in reading about its history, it's been called Yamhill, CT or IA-32e. Given that Microsoft refused to spin a version of XP that would fit IA-32e, Intel eventually caved and released the EMT64 spec which large follows AMD's lead in the matter.

Though AMD could set Intel back 3-4 processor generations, Intel could take Yamhill out of the mothballs and get back to x64 chips in a hurry. AMD, on the other hand, would find themselves without an instruction set that would work on any PC made in the last 20 years. They'd die immediately.
27 Jan 2009 ~ 6:24pm Tushon

Thrax wrote:

No, AMD wouldn't fare better in the end. AMD would be ruined.

The x86-64 spec is a register/instruction extension of Intel's x86 spec. If Intel revoked the x86 license, AMD would be left with a expansion to a home that's been demolished. Clearly that would not work well for you or I, nor would it work well for AMD.

Intel, on the other hand, once dabbled in the establishment of their own x64 spec before Microsoft flatly refused to support it. If you're interested in reading about its history, it's been called Yamhill, CT or IA-32e. Given that Microsoft refused to spin a version of XP that would fit IA-32e, Intel eventually caved and released the EMT64 spec which large follows AMD's lead in the matter.

Though AMD could set Intel back 3-4 processor generations, Intel could take Yamhill out of the mothballs and get back to x64 chips in a hurry. AMD, on the other hand, would find themselves without an instruction set that would work on any PC made in the last 20 years. They'd die immediately.

Here is my correction.

Annes wrote:

Welcome to IC, natravis

Thanks!!