Dear Motherboard Gurus.... tell me if ...

  • Thread starter Thread starter Clive
  • Start date Start date
- HAL9000 said:
No?
Click to expand...

No, I dont think intel got a patent on "Mhz" or "Ghz" or any specific
divison of it.

It's all logic gates so they are similar from the start. Different design's
can get the same speed as intel chips (or different design's can get the
same work done as amd chips)..
They just both chose to go about it in different ways.

Remember too that just a few months ago (and probably still if you could
find old kit) the VIA C3's would fit inside intel boards. The use of the
chipset was actually found to be some type of infringement so VIA had to
stop making the chip fit intel boards.

I would guess something of the following would be a patent infringement

Intel/Amd using VIA's PadLock
or Intel/VIA using Amd's BufferOverflow protection (dont know what they call
it)
Or VIA/Amd using Intels thermal throttle protection (the one that's inside
the chip, or so I hear)
 
A non-scientific search of the US patent office records for patents
with the name "Intel" in the assignee field and the word "cpu" in the
text of the patent revealed over 1500 "hits".

The same type of search for assignee name of "advanced micro devices"
and "cpu" in the text of the patent revealed over 900 patents.

I noticed several patents on "branch prediction" in the AMD hit list
(only viewed the first page or first 50 hits).

Patents play a major role in the protection of hi tech property. No
doubt AMD has licensed many of the Intel patents (SSE for example). I
suspect there exists a cross-licensing of patents agreement between
the 2 companies, most likely a result of an earlier lawsuit filed by
one of the parties for patent infringement.

Here's a web site showing ongoing legal activity involving AMD and
Intel and AMD's attempts to uncover "tech" secrets via the courts.
http://www.amdboard.com/amdsuesintel.html

Logic gates are the building blocks, however, unique arrangements of
those gates is protectable subject matter under the patent laws of
most countries.
--
Best regards,
Kyle
|
| | > No?
| >
| >
|
| No, I dont think intel got a patent on "Mhz" or "Ghz" or any
specific
| divison of it.
|
| It's all logic gates so they are similar from the start. Different
design's
| can get the same speed as intel chips (or different design's can get
the
| same work done as amd chips)..
| They just both chose to go about it in different ways.
|
| Remember too that just a few months ago (and probably still if you
could
| find old kit) the VIA C3's would fit inside intel boards. The use
of the
| chipset was actually found to be some type of infringement so VIA
had to
| stop making the chip fit intel boards.
|
| I would guess something of the following would be a patent
infringement
|
| Intel/Amd using VIA's PadLock
| or Intel/VIA using Amd's BufferOverflow protection (dont know what
they call
| it)
| Or VIA/Amd using Intels thermal throttle protection (the one that's
inside
| the chip, or so I hear)
|
|
|
 
Kylesb said:
Patents play a major role in the protection of hi tech property. No
doubt AMD has licensed many of the Intel patents (SSE for example). I
suspect there exists a cross-licensing of patents agreement between
the 2 companies, most likely a result of an earlier lawsuit filed by
one of the parties for patent infringement.
Click to expand...

There is indeed a cross-licensing agreement between Intel and AMD.
It gives AMD license to all Intel instruction x86 compatible sets
up to and including SSE2. I'm not sure about SSE3. It similarly
gives Intel license to all AMD stuff up to and including 3DNow and
the x86-64 instructions for the Opteron.

Note that this arrangement does *not* provide any exchange of
physical technology. For example, with regards to SSE2 it merely
means that Intel has to provide AMD with a list of all SSE2 instructions
and details about what those instructions are supposed to do, and the
right to implement SSE2 royalty-free in AMD processors. It
is still up to AMD to figure out how to implement SSE2 in hardware.

Similarly, Intel gets a list of AMD's x86-64 extensions and details
about what they are supposed to do - but is up to Intel to do their
own design work to figure out how to implement x86-64.

From the consumer's point of view it means that Intel and AMD
have royalty free access to each other's x86 instruction sets
and they are therefore capable - in theory at least - of making
their new x86 processors compatible with each other's. As to
whether they will actually do so remains to be seen.
 
Rob said:
There is indeed a cross-licensing agreement between Intel and AMD.
It gives AMD license to all Intel instruction x86 compatible sets up
to and including SSE2. I'm not sure about SSE3. It similarly gives
Intel license to all AMD stuff up to and including 3DNow and the
x86-64 instructions for the Opteron.
Click to expand...
SSE3 is also covered by some agreement, AMD has already said they are
going to implement it in future Athlon64 cpus (possibly those on 90nm,
could be later though, AMD hasn't told when...)
From the consumer's point of view it means that Intel and AMD have
royalty free access to each other's x86 instruction sets and they are
therefore capable - in theory at least - of making their new x86
processors compatible with each other's. As to whether they will
actually do so remains to be seen.
Click to expand...
Well, AMD will implement SSE3, and intel have already said they will
implement x86_64 (though called differently, they don't want to
acknowledge it isn't their idea, and only for Xeons in the near future),
so that seems to be more than theory.

Roland
 
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