[News/Rumor] Intel Could License AMD Radeon iGPU Tech for Future Processors

[StyM]

https://www.techpowerup.com/228467/i...ure-processors

Intel and AMD's cross-licensing arrangements could get more equitable in the future, with reports hinting at the possibility of Intel licensing AMD Radeon intellectual property to be used as Intel processors' integrated GPUs. Rumors of such a deal were first reported by HardOCP this Spring, where it stated that the two companies were negotiating a licensing agreement. Earlier this week, HardOCP editor Kyle Bennett commented on the site's forums that a licensing agreement has been reached between the two, even though Intel does not want this to be public.

Such an agreement could see AMD sharing designs of its Radeon integrated graphics processors with Intel, which will integrate it into its processor designs, and manufacture them. Whether the amalgamated graphics solution will continue to be branded "AMD Radeon" or whether it will be marketed under the Intel graphics brands, remains to be seen.

[drmrlordx]

That could be a big win for AMD to the tune of $85 million per quarter in licensing fees. You have to wonder what kind of cooperation they would do on driver support, too.

That would be very interesting indeed.

[Kai Robinson]

I wouldn't trust anything that came out of Kyle Bennetts mouth. If he said rain was wet, i'd go check. Twice.

[StAndrew]

Wouldn't that wreck their APU sales? I mean even more than currently.

[zanzabar]

Wouldn't that wreck their APU sales? I mean even more than currently.

they sell them at a loss or near loss. the intel iris pro parts also outperform the a10 in gpu tasks now so i dont think it would really hurt them. i could also see intel spending a bit more than they should to make sure amd stays up and running so they dont get targeted with more regulations.

[qcmadness]

they sell them at a loss or near loss. the intel iris pro parts also outperform the a10 in gpu tasks now so i dont think it would really hurt them. i could also see intel spending a bit more than they should to make sure amd stays up and running so they dont get targeted with more regulations.

It is not the GPU part that made the loss, but the CPU performance.

Iris Pro was faster due to memory and caching only.

[Darakian]

Isn't this just a patent licensing deal?

[AliG]

Isn't this just a patent licensing deal?

That was my understanding. Intel simply licenses out the patent, then creates their own spinoff design for their silicon.

[StAndrew]

That was my understanding. Intel simply licenses out the patent, then creates their own spinoff design for their silicon.

I'm curious what AMD got in return. Surely more than just money? Maybe they licensed parts of hyperthreading patent for Zen...? I can't imagine AMD created a SMT solution that didn't overlap at least one part of Intel's patent

[qcmadness]

I'm curious what AMD got in return. Surely more than just money? Maybe they licensed parts of hyperthreading patent for Zen...? I can't imagine AMD created a SMT solution that didn't overlap at least one part of Intel's patent

Intel is not the inventor of SMT.

[StAndrew]

Intel is not the inventor of SMT.

Not the concept but I'm pretty sure the way they execute is proprietary.

A quick search:
https://www.google.com/patents/US7149880
https://www.google.com/patents/US852...uaBEcQ6AEIMTAD
https://www.google.com/patents/US736...uaBEcQ6AEIPzAF
https://www.google.com/patents/US765...uaBEcQ6AEITTAH

[drmrlordx]

There are many implementations of SMT that are (or have been) on the market:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simult...mplementations

It would not surprise me if AMD's were more similar to IBM's or Sun/Oracle's implementations.

[StAndrew]

There are many implementations of SMT that are (or have been) on the market:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simult...mplementations

It would not surprise me if AMD's were more similar to IBM's or Sun/Oracle's implementations.

Why do you think that?

[Mechromancer]

Nvidia and Qualcomm are pressuring Intel. Microsoft now has this Windows 10 that can run x86 software on an ARM CPU. Intel sees the writing on the wall and will be making some moves. They were distracted while punching and kicking AMD on the ground and now Qualcomm and Nvidia have snuck up on them in datacenter and elsewhere.

We're going to have some fun years ahead...

[xlink]

Why do you think that?

AMD and IBM have had licensing agreements in the past.

[AliG]

Nvidia and Qualcomm are pressuring Intel. Microsoft now has this Windows 10 that can run x86 software on an ARM CPU. Intel sees the writing on the wall and will be making some moves. They were distracted while punching and kicking AMD on the ground and now Qualcomm and Nvidia have snuck up on them in datacenter and elsewhere.

We're going to have some fun years ahead...

That's an interesting theory. True, Intel did definitely enjoy in some profit taking these past few years. But I'm not sure I'm quite ready to say Nvidia is in a position to take away the CPU market from them just yet.

Deep learning is definitely an interesting market segment - one that is arguably more efficient on a GPU than a CPU. Having said that, I don't see any route where Nvidia can survive without a CPU helping to run the OS.

[drmrlordx]

AMD and IBM have had licensing agreements in the past.

Well not only that, but early on in the Zen rumour mill, at least a few people were suggesting that Zen would be taking cues from the UltraSPARC playbook. At least one rumour-monger suggested it would be hybrid CMT/SMT, but that hasn't come to pass (thank goodness).

GlobalFoundries already controls all the fabs that produce POWER chips, and if you look at the SMT scaling on POWER8 and POWER9, they get a lot done that way.

Intel is not the only SMT game in town.

Based on what has been revealed about Summit Ridge, we can see that it's a pretty wide core, so there's fertile ground here to permit a lot of computational resources to go to the second thread per core, depending on the circumstances.

That's an interesting theory. True, Intel did definitely enjoy in some profit taking these past few years. But I'm not sure I'm quite ready to say Nvidia is in a position to take away the CPU market from them just yet.

Deep learning is definitely an interesting market segment - one that is arguably more efficient on a GPU than a CPU. Having said that, I don't see any route where Nvidia can survive without a CPU helping to run the OS.

I'm not sure how much the ARM-based Win10 is really going to lead to market displacement. The continued maturation of Linux on ARM is probably going to mean more in the server room.

And it's going to take more than a consumer build of Win10 for ARM to cause any major change in that space (not to speak of the drivers that would have to be ported over).

That being said, Nvidia has already paired their products - and their NVLink - with IBM's POWER platform. POWER + OpenPOWER is expected to be NVidia's platform of choice.

[StAndrew]

I'm not sure how much the ARM-based Win10 is really going to lead to market displacement. The continued maturation of Linux on ARM is probably going to mean more in the server room.

And it's going to take more than a consumer build of Win10 for ARM to cause any major change in that space (not to speak of the drivers that would have to be ported over).

That being said, Nvidia has already paired their products - and their NVLink - with IBM's POWER platform. POWER + OpenPOWER is expected to be NVidia's platform of choice.

Yeah ARM already finished the Atom processor so not much competition for low costs Windows based tablets in the short term. But this may motivate ARM to manufacture a bigger chip and start eating into Intel's mobile shares.

[verndewd]

lol i love the irony of this