DailyTech - Intel: ATI Bus License Still Go

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Hardware Intel: ATI Bus License Still Go
Kristopher Kubicki (Blog) - July 25, 2006 6:46 PM

28 comment(s) - last by Viditor.. on Jul 31 at 10:22 PM

ATI is still go for RD600

Intel insiders have confirmed to DailyTech that the license for ATI to manufacture chipsets for the Intel bus has not been revoked. ATI's board of directors recently approved a takeover bid from AMD which would make ATI a division of AMD if approved.

A report on The Inquirer yesterday claims "ATI had its chipset bus license pulled, or at least not renewed by Intel." Aside from the fact that it is probably not legal for Intel to retract the agreement, the cross-license agreement between Intel and ATI has not come up for review either. It's not impossible to fathom that Intel would opt to not renew the ATI cross-license agreement, but at this time the agreement is still working and will continue to function until an announcement is made by Intel and ATI.

ATI's upcoming RD600 chipset is slated to be one of the most ambitious ATI chipsets to date, bringing Intel's Conroe and ATI's Triple Play physics to the table. However, the most recent ATI launch schedule still puts this chipset in for a 2006 launch, likely before the AMD-ATI merger would be finalized. Even then, it is difficult to ascertain if Intel would opt to not renew the bus license as it may take ATI years to fully assimilate into AMD. AMD president Dirk Meyer outlined that ATI and AMD would begin co-development of products in 2008.

Specifically with regard to RD600, Cameron Wilmot at TweakTown has confirmed that DFI's LanParty RD600 motherboard is still slated for launch. When DailyTech approached DFI San Jose General Manager Jacky Huang with regard to RD600, Huang replied "RD600 LANParty is still in development, and there have been no announcements to stop development." ATI's RS700 chipset, on the other hand, would be a chipset definitely in jeopardy if the license agreement was to terminate.

Intel is also dependent on ATI's core logic division, as Intel even has some Intel-branded ATI motherboards in its portfolio. However, there is no replacement for the ATI Xpress 1100 Grant Country motherboard with the Bearlake generation of Intel motherboards.

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Come again?

By segagenesis on 7/25/2006 7:53:52 PM , Rating: 5

Most people usually take news from The Inquirer with a grain of salt, or rather the entire salt shaker. Perhaps thier tagline was misspelled as "News, reviews, facts and fiction".

RE: Come again?

By shadowzz on 7/25/2006 8:22:51 PM , Rating: 2

I used to trust the inquirer, at least when Charlie posted something. Unfortunately, their track record has been pretty awful lately. Dell did go with AMD, Rydermark was totally faked, AMD bought ATI (ok, inquirer said it was going to happen, but they also said it didnt), and now statements like "Intel pulls ATI license," when in fact they havent. Why tell people these motherboards aren't going to come out when they are? I know the inq used to be VIA owned, but are they still using the VIA influence to spread fud?

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RE: Come again?

By dailyinquirer on 7/25/2006 8:45:42 PM , Rating: 3

Daily tech, the Inq... they are almost the same, tabloids. Perhaps the Inq makes a mistake on occasions, but there still is a great deal of things that they get right. And regarding the Rydermark, i haven't seen yet any good proof regarding wich side is corect.

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RE: Come again?

By shadowzz on 7/25/2006 9:04:33 PM , Rating: 2

http://dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=3400

Looking for more?

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RE: Come again?

By johnsonx on 7/25/2006 9:26:23 PM , Rating: 2

quote:
regarding the Rydermark, i haven't seen yet any good proof regarding wich side is corect

LOL. Those who believe the Rydermark story on the Inq. are even less correct than your spelling.

That story was an obvious fraud or hoax. The only suprising aspect of it was the Inq. being fooled, and then standing behind the story when the 'screenshots' were revealed as OBVIOUS fakes.

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RE: Come again?

By Nelsieus on 7/26/2006 12:33:17 AM , Rating: 4

There is a *huge* difference between the two, and I think you're very mis-guided by failing to realize the distinction. TheINQ mostly goes by base-less FUD, whereas Dailytech is usually very adament about making sure they are presenting quality news that aside from being accurate, is also very reliable.

While I don't like when Dailytech reveals premature stories at times on un-announced projects/products (I think this overall hurts the communication between the big corps. and media sites), they atleast make sure they get it right. *Most* of theINQ's stories are premature stories, which most of the time are *not* right.

TheINQ also usually leans very far in certain directions, which I'll abstain from noting as it would diverge this discussion. But an example would be Fuad's recent involvement in an organization to demote and discreit nVidia by throwing out photoshopped images and alleging radical claims that proved to be very untrue. Either Fuad went along with these claims because of his "affiliations" in the industry (proving the biasy), or was just so incompetant and mis-guided to know that Rydermark's allegations were flat out lies (which most message board members seemed to realize the instance the story broke).

TheINQ isn't even in the same class as Dailytech.

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RE: Come again?

By masher2

(blog) on 7/26/2006 10:10:11 AM , Rating: 1

The Inquirer employs a team of several hundred ex-research monkeys chained to typewriters. The best copy makes it to their site...some of it is even correct on occassion.

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RE: Come again?

By MAIA on 7/26/2006 10:23:26 AM , Rating: 2

quote:
*Most* of theINQ's stories are premature stories, which most of the time are *not* right.

I wouldn't say "most of the time", but they are surely above average. Anyway, the thing with the INQ. is that when they're mistaken or lies surface, they do it in a big way or at the most sensitive issues.

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RE: Come again?

By mino on 7/26/2006 6:05:00 PM , Rating: 2

It's called investigative journalism. maybe you've heard of it.

Inq NEVER says the reality is as they say so! They even explicitli mention their sporce is an rumour one and so on.

Inq is trend site, meaning they put mostly rumours the believe(!=know) fit the picture and MAY be fullfiled in the future.

If one cannot undestand this, shall he not visit their site.

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screw the letters

By mino on 7/26/2006 6:05:53 PM , Rating: 2

and my fingers with them ;)

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RE: Come again?

By tuteja1986 on 7/25/2006 9:10:37 PM , Rating: 2

That is good : )

That deal is worth arround $100million per Quater or 80% ATI mobo sales.

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RE: Come again?

By Spoonbender on 7/25/2006 10:01:29 PM , Rating: 2

Well, technically they're correct in saying the license hasn't been renewed. They just forget to mention that it hasn't even come up for review yet, so of course it hasn't been renewed.

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RE: Come again?

By PT2006 on 7/25/2006 10:23:56 PM , Rating: 2

Sure, but they also say:

"Intel pulls ATI bus licence"

And considering the article is only 2 sentences long, plus the title, that's not a real good batting percentage!

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RE: Come again?

By stmok on 7/26/2006 2:33:45 AM , Rating: 2

There's a few reasons why I prefer Dailytech over The Inquirer.

(1) There's none of that "Everywhere Girl" nonsense. I'm not sure if its some infatuation or they were just bored. Personally, I don't give a sh*t. Its not anything related to tech news specifically, so it should be ignored.

(2) They don't post "one liner" or "one paragraph" news articles. (In recent weeks, I've noticed these nonsensical news posts without any links or backing of any sort). It feels like a 15yr old pulled something out of their arse...And they get paid to do this news posting, don't they?

(3) The Inquirer delibrately writes a headliner in a certain way that catches attention, but when you actually read the article, its a different story. (its misleading to get you to read the article). It pisses me off.

(4) The advertising...The Inquirer's layout in ads is annoying. You have a big block of ad right in the middle of the article! And then, its the same ad in a rectangular form on the right side! I get so fustrated, I use Ad-Block Plus to block ALL of The Inquirer's ads! (I do the same for Cnet, eWeek, ZDNet, etc).

(5) The Inquirer's reviews and such, seem more like "wham, bam, thank you ma'am". While Dailytech's hardware branch, Anandtech, takes a more thorough approach. At least they have someone with experience when it comes to Linux-related articles. (The Inquirer folks have no f*cking idea what they're doing).

The only reason I look at The Inquirer on occasion, is their info on upcoming CPU/video hardware, and roadmaps. Everything else seems nonsense. (even then, I cross-check with places like Dailytech, Tech Report, Ars Technica, etc).

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RE: Come again?

By Xavian on 7/26/2006 11:12:52 AM , Rating: 2

except the anandtech is virtually seperate from dailytech nowadays?

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Come on Kris...

By JackPack on 7/25/2006 8:42:31 PM , Rating: 2

quote:
Probably not legal for Intel to retract the agreement

Yeah, right. You can bet there's all sorts of contingencies and clauses in the agreement in the event ATI is acquired by, merges with, or purchases a third party.

Intel lawyers weren't born yesterday. They've signed cross-license agreements with AMD, DEC, Rambus, ARM and have had litigation experience with Intergraph, VIA, DEC, Broadcom....

RE: Come on Kris...

By KristopherKubicki

(blog) on 7/25/2006 9:12:11 PM , Rating: 2

I agree with you, though it would be fair to say ATI has a legal team too. From the information Ive gather from Intel and ATI, the only way out of that CLA right now is for one party to not renew it. It is not up for renewal yet, and even still I have some confirmation that nothing will happen until the deal is finalized yet either.

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RE: Come on Kris...

By Ecmaster76 on 7/26/2006 9:23:00 AM , Rating: 2

Lets not forget that AMD and Intel are crosslicensed. So if AMD buys ATI, ATI would still have access to all Intel patents through AMD's rights.

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RE: Come on Kris...

By othercents on 7/26/2006 12:06:55 PM , Rating: 2

Does this mean that ATI has access to more patents than they have ever had? This is very interesting, but my understanding that this is a cross patent licensing with AMD which means that Intel might even have access to ATI patents when this deal is done.

Other

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RE: Come on Kris...

By mino on 7/26/2006 6:08:40 PM , Rating: 3

They have, but AFAIK that is on x86 CPU stuff only.

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RE: Come on Kris...

By Anh Huynh on 7/25/2006 9:48:24 PM , Rating: 2

Intel lawyers are so great they couldn't get out of the Rambus agreements ;)

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RE: Come on Kris...

By Jkm3141 on 7/25/2006 11:41:13 PM , Rating: 2

nice

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"... in a year or so"

By Kiijibari on 7/26/2006 3:54:56 AM , Rating: 2

Where is the problem, the Inquirer article mentioned just:" I guess that means that AMD won't be making many chipsets for Intel in a year or so. µ"

It doesn't state, that the RD600 is canceled.

Thus I assume both articles are correct.

ATi will make some money with the RD600 until next year, and then it will stop sometime in H2/07.

regards

Kiijibari

RE: "... in a year or so"

By PT2006 on 7/26/2006 5:00:16 AM , Rating: 2

Actually, the inquirer was wrong. They posted a retraction today

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ATI AMD rumours were on again off again false too...

By FXi on 7/29/2006 1:01:55 PM , Rating: 3

ATI isn't going to tell you something's dead until they have to. You won't know until the very last minute, barring a leak, whether something was terminated or not. And Intel may very well not be able to terminate ongoing projects. It is the ones following the RD600 that may be at an end.

But don't listen to ATI's or Nvidia's or Intel's press releases saying "rumour xxx simply isn't true" and just wave the flag and tell people to go home it was all a mistake. Don't take this on just the Inquirer's sake, but literally the entire pc press industry. The number of products that have shown up that were denied by the producers is huge, as are the ones that have been cancelled. Don't think that Intel wants AMD making chipsets for it. Intel really is that paranoid, and we all KNOW that for sure. Whether they have a right to be paranoid or not, you can bet their legal department and their management staff are going over 1000's of ramifications of this merger. And if there is one company that is capable of making sure the rumour mill gets squashed good or pumped good at its choice, that would be Intel.

So no, don't believe every single story of the Inquirer. But do look logically at the companies involved here and ask yourself if you think this is a normal possible move Intel would make. Heck, they sold cpu's for 2 years that they knew were a dead end! You think they wouldn't cut off a toe just to spite AMD? LOL. Think!

The license is good until it expires...

By Beenthere on 7/26/06, Rating: -1

RE: The license is good until it expires...

By mino on 7/26/2006 6:11:42 PM , Rating: 3

Wrong, the moment the licence expires, ATI couldn't ship intels chipsets at all.
Remember the licence is on the intels FSB not on the right to make a chipset for their CPU's.

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RE: The license is good until it expires...

By Viditor on 7/31/2006 10:22:00 PM , Rating: 2

quote:
Wrong, the moment the licence expires, ATI couldn't ship intels chipsets at all.

Or it could mean that ATI just wouldn't be able to develop NEW chipsets for the Intel bus (most likely). If ATI signed an agreement that forced them to stop selling their inventory at the expiration of the licensing agreement, then they need to fire their lawyers (it doesn't usually happen that way)!

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