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Technology Stocks : Advanced Micro Devices - Moderated (AMD) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (70075)	2/1/2002 10:25:25 PM
From: combjelly	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 275872

"I know I'm young, but that's news to me." As a total outsider, this is the way it seemed to me. Back in the early mists of the industry, second sources were required for almost every part. Intel used AMD for this, it probably has a lot to do with Noyce and Jerry being from the same company (Fairchild). Anyway, AMD seem to be contented with following Intel loyally and then when Intel moved to the new technology, AMD would push the older technology for all it was worth. Examples, Intel moved to the 80286, and then AMD pushed the 8088 to 10MHz, I don't remember if the 12.5MHz was an AMD chip or not. When Intel moved to the 80386, then AMD pushed the 80286 to 16MHz, Intel's max was 12.5MHz. AMD was very careful not to push Intel's premier processor higher than Intel wanted to, but felt free to push the trailing chips to higher ranges than Intel did. Apparently Grove, who took over from Noyce by the time the 80286 came out, decided that AMD was more of a nuisance than an advantage. Whether he was right or wrong is not the point, but Jerry apparently felt different. Anyway, at the 80386, Grove decided to draw a line in the sand. Intel sued AMD over the 80386 when AMD went ahead and copied it. AMD's defense was that they had a second source agreement with Intel that allowed them to copy their chips. The judge agreed, and Intel retreated and licked it's wounds. When the 80486 came out, the same thing happened. This time, the judge ruled that the second source agreement covered things to that point, but future refinements would have to be covered by what became the secret set of agreements between the two companies. Now it is very likely that AMD did push things beyond a reasonable point. But we don't really know what went on between Jerry and Noyce. It does look like Noyce felt that as long as AMD didn't offer anything more advanced than Intel was offering, everything was fine. This squares pretty much with the way things were done at the time, there were almost no patent disputes (TI's disputes on DRAM was the notable exception) and everyone worked on out-innovating everyone else. AMD did do some innovation themselves during those days, the AMD2900 series and the 9518( I think) floating point unit comes to mind, but for the most part, they were the second source for Intel. In logic, that is. Jerry seemed very hurt and surprised with the lawsuits. That is how the jihad started...