but then again, there’s Intel, and I highly doubt that they are going to give away their newest and most shiny designs.
Intel set up shop there not long ago, and of course the technology went with it. But the lowest they could go was their 90nm process. I doubt China got the latest and greatest in any AMD deal either.
Exactly. More than likely, AMD showed them how to build technology that's several generations old. The latest improvemens and research, particularly with regards to multiple cores on a single processor, reducing heat output and energy consumption, advanced pipelining, and so forth, will remain under lock and key here in the States.
Who cares if the Chinese can clone AMD K6-2/3 or Athlon XP processors? We're light years ahead of them. Plus, who knows if AMD left a few bugs in the designs, similar to the infamous Pentium F00F arithmetic error.