Updated: The License Agreement: Intel to Pay NVIDIA $1.5 Billion
by Anand Lal Shimpi on January 10, 2011 4:29 PM ESTUpdate 2: Our full analysis of the agreement is now available here: Intel Settles With NVIDIA: More Money, Fewer Problems, No x86
In about 30 minutes NVIDIA will host a conference call to announce its 6-year $1.5 billion license agreement with Intel. Intel will pay annual installments totaling $1.5 billion over 6 years beginning January 18th.
We'll have full details after the conference call. The license agreement stems from the Intel/NV dispute over the right to build chipsets that interface with Intel CPUs that use DMI/QPI instead of the traditional GTL+ FSB.
After Project Denver and the Tegra 2 announcements at CES, it looks like NVIDIA is shaping up to have a good start to 2011.
Update: While we're still working on our full rundown of the agreement, there's been some speculation over at Ars Technica about what this agreement means for Intel; specifically claiming that NVIDIA GPUs will be appearing in Intel CPUs, on the basis of the fact that Intel is licensing NVIDIA technology. I'm not a lawyer (though I do play one on the Internet) however I disagree with this reading - Intel has to license NVIDIA technology to avoid running afoul of the company's large patent portfolio with their own IGPs. It's for all practical purposes impossible to build a desktop GPU without infringing on an AMD/NV patent. This agreement allows Intel to continue producing their IGPs, just as how the original 2004 chipset agreement allowed Intel to produce more modern IGPs in return for NVIDIA getting a chipset license. -Ryan Smith
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JarredWalton - Monday, January 10, 2011 - link
I disagree. AMD had a competitive product line in the 1998-2002 time frame, but Intel's offerings were still generally better. That changed with Athlon 64, which wasn't until 2002; even the "horrible" NetBurst chips were beating Athlon pretty handily, and Pentium 3 before that usually beat K7. That lasted until August 2006 with the Core 2 Duo launch, and Intel has maintained a lead ever since.AMD has competed on pricing in the past, and they're doing so now, and they will continue to do so. That makes things a bit more difficult to recommend, but the only reason Intel isn't selling better chips for less money is because they like big profit margins. Then again, if it weren't for AMD's K7-K10.5 lineup Intel CPUs would likely cost even more.
silverblue - Wednesday, January 12, 2011 - link
I always viewed the P3 and Athlon as being pretty much the same, with the Athlon pulling away once it hit Palomino. Regardless, both were easily faster per clock in most cases than the P4. What saved the P4 was its insane clock speeds.DarkUltra - Wednesday, January 26, 2011 - link
"- Intel is far, far worse than Microsoft has ever been at anti-competitive practices."I don't think so. Microsoft is just as bad by bundling major programs for free with Windows. It hinders competition very much; the only way to compete has been to be much better and/or free. Internet Explorer killed Netscape, and by bundling an email program, a messenger program and a media player Microsoft prevents good quality software to establish itself. If it did, we could see these brands on other platforms like MacOS and Linux, and it would be a great blow to Microsofts monopoly. It should be equal competition, and Microsoft should remove the major programs. There have been some improvement, I now get a link to all the serious browser and an option to download/install them. I whish Microsoft would open up undocumented APIs too. I don't want to pay for more than I use, and I would be glad to be able to buy a Windows version without Internet Explorer, Media Player, Movie Maker, Messenger, Windows Mail etc. I prefer Opera, Firefox, Media Player Classic, PowerDVD and Thunderbird.
Though IE9 with Direct2D is much faster than Opera and firefox beta 4 with Direct2D, i might change my browser hand't it been that I don't really want to support Microsofts monopoly :)
Rafterman - Saturday, May 7, 2011 - link
It's called "Doing Business".Aenslead - Monday, January 10, 2011 - link
My bad. Now I understand the message. It means Intel will license NVIDIA technology and pay for it - in exchange, both will drop their litigations. My bad.mino - Monday, January 10, 2011 - link
Please, refrain posting to topics you have barely a clue about.The Intel-AMD settlement was mostly about non-financial compensation. E.g. GLOFO could not have been created before that.
AnandThenMan - Monday, January 10, 2011 - link
AMD would not have had to divest their fabrication plants if Intel had not put the illegal screws to them for so long. You really think AMD sold off the majority stake in their production facilities because they wanted to?Manex - Monday, January 10, 2011 - link
Is this a licensing agreement, a cross-licensing agreement or just a settlement? If Intel is paying NVidia and not getting anything tangible out of the deal (other than perhaps the dropping of a lawsuit on Nvidia's part) then it's just a settlement agreement. In fact, even if Nvidia is getting a license for DMI/QPI out of it, I'd still call it a settlement, but that is open to interpretation I guess. It will be interesting to see what additional details are revealed during the conference call.dagamer34 - Monday, January 10, 2011 - link
According to MacRumors, nVidia still doesn't get to make chipsets with DMI/QPI, but at this point, I don't see why they would want to. All of the growth is now in mobile, and with Project Denver and Tegra 2, it's easy to see that nVidia would rather build the entire SoC than to play in someone else's sandbox.has407 - Monday, January 10, 2011 - link
Formally, it's "PATENT CROSS LICENSE AGREEMENT BETWEEN NVIDIA CORPORATION AND INTEL CORPORATION".Public portions of the agreement available at:
http://download.intel.com/pressroom/legal/Intel_Nv...