Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: adorno

AMD stole it from Intel, though.


11 posted on 06/26/2007 7:31:24 AM PDT by Brilliant
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies ]


To: Brilliant
AMD stole it from Intel, though.

AMD stole nothing.

Intel granted AMD generous licensing deals early on when the were helping provide extra manufacturing capacity for Intel. AMD eventually had to distance itself from copied x86 microcode, which they did. AMD's is now a completely independent, unique implementation of the x86 instruction set, and has been for years.

Interestingly, with the advent of 64-bit x86 processing, AMD turned the tables and became the leader. They released a 64-bit consumer CPU--the Opteron--onto the market in 2003, before Intel, so Intel was essentially forced by the market to make their 64-bit x86 instruction set "AMD compatible".

14 posted on 06/26/2007 7:41:23 AM PDT by TChris (The Republican Party is merely the Democrat Party's "away" jersey - Vox Day)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies ]

To: Brilliant
AMD stole it from Intel, though.

Not quite. IBM would never sole-source back then, not wanting to be beholden to any one supplier. So they sourced both Intel and AMD to make the microprocessors for their new PC. Intel licensed the tech to AMD, and they both produced processors for a while. Then Intel tried to pull out of the agreement for the 386, and AMD sued Intel and won. But that left AMD without a clear right to use Intel's microcode anymore, so they clean-roomed a new processor.

27 posted on 06/26/2007 9:16:46 AM PDT by antiRepublicrat
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies ]

To: Brilliant
AMD stole it from Intel, though.

No theft ... there was a licensing agreement thtrough the '286 (or the '386, as AMD sees it.).

33 posted on 06/26/2007 9:44:31 AM PDT by bimbo
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson