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Re:Watch out AMD: Intel Arc A580 could be the next great aff... by ekianjo on Saturday August 05, 2023 @02:51AM (#37009624)
Because you need a license and very few companies have one.
Re:Watch out AMD: Intel Arc A580 could be the next great aff... by lordnacho on Saturday August 05, 2023 @03:02AM (#37009685)
IP laws strike again. This is like saying someone can't make Lego compatible plastic bricks, or a Torx wrench.

Seem unreasonable to me. Even without a legal protection there is some degree of protection for the original creator something as complicated as a CPU.

Re:Watch out AMD: Intel Arc A580 could be the next great aff... by magnat on Saturday August 05, 2023 @03:58AM (#37009976)
Can Intel refuse to sell such license to nVidia or ask for much higher fees than other companies? If nVidia bought one of those companies, would that allow them to produce x86 chips at will?
Re:Watch out AMD: Intel Arc A580 could be the next great aff... by shrewduser on Saturday August 05, 2023 @05:37AM (#37010452)
the license doesn't transfer if the company is bought.
Re:Watch out AMD: Intel Arc A580 could be the next great aff... by Dah00n on Saturday August 05, 2023 @05:53AM (#37010527)
As far as I can remember they would have to buy AMD, VIA or IBM to get a X86 licence. That's just the beginning though as many later patents are also important, but they would likely also be already licensed by these companies (like AMD64 for one). If they could even use the license after a take over.... I don't know.
Re:Watch out AMD: Intel Arc A580 could be the next great aff... by als0 on Saturday August 05, 2023 @11:43AM (#37013142)
If AMD got taken over, then they would automatically lose their x86 license, as I believe it is a condition in their cross-licensing agreement. This is why I don't expect AMD to get bought in the near future.
Re:Watch out AMD: Intel Arc A580 could be the next great aff... by EwanToo on Saturday August 05, 2023 @12:43PM (#37013814)
That's correct yes, if AMD is bought then the cross-licensing deals terminate in both directions - i.e. Intel also lose access to the AMD patents.

It's a poison pill which means Intel themselves would be the only serious buyer.

Re:Watch out AMD: Intel Arc A580 could be the next great aff... by n3m4c on Saturday August 05, 2023 @02:00PM (#37014731)
Wouldn’t that mean Intel would really have to negotiate a new deal with whoever buys AMD since otherwise they couldn’t make any new cpus?
Re:Watch out AMD: Intel Arc A580 could be the next great aff... by als0 on Sunday August 06, 2023 @06:26AM (#37020605)
Technically AMD could still make ARM[1] or RISC-V based CPUs under a new owner.

[1] https://www.trustedreviews.com/news/amd-reveals-its-ready-to...

Re:Watch out AMD: Intel Arc A580 could be the next great aff... by wkat4242 on Sunday August 06, 2023 @04:56PM (#37026650)
> It's a poison pill which means Intel themselves would be the only serious buyer.

Which market regulators would never allow. This is even bigger in terms of monopoly than Nvidia trying to buy arm.

Re:Watch out AMD: Intel Arc A580 could be the next great aff... by SAI_Peregrinus on Saturday August 05, 2023 @10:38AM (#37012436)
> Can Intel refuse to sell such license to nVidia or ask for much higher fees than other companies?

Yes. There's no requirement to sell licenses to patents in general. Sometimes (not always) if a patent is included by a government in a standard that government will require the owning company to license it on "Fair, Reasonable, And Non-Discriminatory" terms (FRAND). Most patents, including the x86, x86_64, and various extension patents are not required to be licensed under FRAND terms.

AMD and Intel have a mutual licensing agreement. When Intel patents a new extension, they license it to AMD. Likewise when AMD patents a new extension, the license it to Intel. That's why Intel CPUs use the AMD x86_64 instruction set, AMD CPUs use the Intel AVX 512 vector instructions, etc.

Re:Watch out AMD: Intel Arc A580 could be the next great aff... by tibbydudeza on Saturday August 05, 2023 @12:47PM (#37013873)
AMD only got one for the 286 because IBM wanted a second source supply for their IBM PC's and things got murky when the i386 came around and AMD needed to compete.

There were some copying and I think they settled with AMD licensing the Intel FSB for $$$ (they switched to DEC Alpha bus protocol when the AMD Athlon 64 bit era came around).

With the AMD 64 they licensed it back to Intel when it became clear that Itanuim was dead as it was so slow and Microsoft forced Intel's hand by releasing a version for Windows Server.

The market is big enough for both.

Re:Watch out AMD: Intel Arc A580 could be the next great aff... by SAI_Peregrinus on Saturday August 05, 2023 @01:29PM (#37014376)
> clear

Yep, but they're both willing to use the patents to keep other entrants out.