Intel Has Reporedly Signed A Deal with AMD To License Radeon Graphic

Different technology firms have, over time, picked a niche of the market and stuck to this position to make their mark on the market and while this kind of specialization does make it better for us to identify something with a brand, there is also always the need for diversification in the long run. In the scene of computer graphics, Intel is not doubted one of the leading (if not the foremost) companies in the manufacture of CPUs and when it comes to the rendering of graphics and production of GPUs, even though they are also versed in this regard, their technology is still miles behind that being developed over at either of NVIDIA or AMD and that causes some serious issues for them, something that it seems they now wish to address and correct with a possible deal that is said to be in place between this CPU giant and AMD themselves.
Over the years, starting from the year 2009 to be precise, Intel has been involved in a series of lawsuits that engaged NVIDIA technologies also and these have been due to the fact that the latter company feels that Intel is infringing on its patents in the creation of their GPUs and that led to a long-running case of litigation. Truth be told, this was around the time of development of the famous integrated GPU (iGPU) with which Intel hoped to rival its competitors but owing to the millions of patents owned by NVIDIA and AMD alone, it would be hard to do this without truly infringing on one or two patents that have been filed and won by any of these rival companies in the past. That put Intel in a tight place, in the end, they had to settle for an agreement that let the both of them off the hook and even gave Intel the freedom that it so desired to manufacture its graphics processors, but as they say, no good thing comes easy. Intel had to part with nothing less than $1.5 billion of its money to keep NVIDIA happy and off the market for the time that the deal would last.
This year was when the last cheque for a sum of $200 million was forwarded to NVIDIA and it stands to reason that at the end of the deal, to avoid another bad face in the press due to the endless litigations that would arise again, Intel has to re-licence its technology and from the look of things, they would be looking to partner up with AMD to use the Radeon graphics card developed by this company. We have to mention here that this deal has not been officially announced and neither of both companies would give a statement as to what’s going on, but from the editor of HardOCP, Kyle Bennett, it is just a matter of time before they go public with this deal.
If it is true that the ink has already dried on the paper where this deal was signed, there stands to be a lot of gains for both parties in this kind of agreement. It is true that Intel is to be considered a competitor to AMD and this kind of deal might be seen as one that would not give birth to healthy competition in the market but to be candid, this is not the first time that we would see rivals team up to achieve a common goal in as much as there are gains to be made for both parties in the agreement. Taking the kind of understanding that Samsung and Apple have for the production of parts used in the iPhone for example, this deal between two processor-based companies starts to look easy in the eye and like something to be pulled off.
Taking the chance that Bennet is on the money here, AMD would start to license its patent and technology developed so far on the Radeon graphics cards to the engineers over at Intel, and they would, in turn, use this in the build of their processors and GPUs. This would foster an agreement between both parties, keep Intel out of the courts in further suits of patent infringements and no doubt, enrich the pockets of the guys over at AMD. Since this would be an amalgamated build between both parties, there is no indication of which part would like to keep the naming rights to the technology developed from this union but a soon as the deal is made public, we should know more.
Another consideration that would make this deal interesting is that the union between these great companies could finally mean that there is an entity big enough to rival NVIDIA in the market because t be candid, the latter company are light years ahead of its peers when it comes to the way their processors render graphics, process data and even handle heavy duties such as gameplay. Intel might just be fed up with the whole cat and mouse game that it has been playing with its bigger rival and might be using this deal to send a message across to them.
While there are numerous benefits to this side of the deal, there is also a downside. The reliance of Intel on Radeon graphics cards would mean that they are in bed with their biggest PC rival for something that is considered a very key component in the development of computers. The more reliant they become on the AMD technology, the more leverage the latter would have over them and the more Intel stands to lose at the time when another re-licensing is right.
Amongst other things being equal, though, we have seen what Intel is capable of with their Core i3, i5 and an i7 set of chipsets and if this new deal should come to fruition, we are more than excited for the future of PCs.