Report: Intel on verge of settlement with FTC and nVidia

[SHAQ]

JHH said there would be no settlement. This is interesting. I wonder what he will get from Intel.

 

[Hard Ball]

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5j3k0-QHaFw2fkEztiIC8ek36w3IgD9H3MNNO1
http://www.pcworld.com/article/201610/ftc_extends_antitrust_settlement_talks_with_intel.html
http://sanfrancisco.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/stories/2010/07/19/daily63.html

The Federal Trade Commission said late Wednesday that it needs more time to consider and negotiate the proposed settlement, which was first announced last month

So I guess we will be watching the drama unfold for a couple more weeks.

Room for more speculations and predictions. Hehe...

 

[OCGuy]

Well this just confuses the hell out of Zoners!

They want Intel to lose money, but not to nv!

 

[HurleyBird]

Heh, based on what they've been doing with PhsyX, Nvidia is the last company that should be complaining about anti-competitive behavior.

 

[DrMrLordX]

JHH said there would be no settlement. This is interesting. I wonder what he will get from Intel.

There will be blood.

 

[akugami]

Well this just confuses the hell out of Zoners!

They want Intel to lose money, but not to nv!

I am not a fanboy but comments like this confuse the hell out of me because I still don't see how this settlement helps nVidia in any meaningful fashion.

The nVidia vs Intel lawsuit is a separate issue and involves patents and licensing rights, not unfair business practices. This issue the FTC is investigating is about unfair business by Intel, such as the unfair bundling of graphics chipsets.

Short term, the elimination of unfair bundling may put a bit more money in nVidia's pocket but by late next year when the integrated CPU+GPU's come out, nVidia is back to square one and pretty much effectively "locked" out of the chipset business once again. And this time legally and not due to unfair business practices.

 

[SlowSpyder]

Well this just confuses the hell out of Zoners!

They want Intel to lose money, but not to nv!

I think you are concerned with 'Zoners' about as much as you think they are concerned with Intel and Nvidia.

 

[WelshBloke]

Every graphics chip Intel has made since the i740 is a 3D accelerator. Every integrated graphics solution Intel has ever made, and every on CPU die GPU that Intel has ever made has 3D acceleration. Every one of them uses IP nV owns. As of right now, nV has nothing to lose as they have already exited the chipset business. If Intel were to lose the right to utilize nV's IP then they lose all of their existing graphics chips which due to nV being out of the chipset business puts them in a very dangerous position in relation to AMD. The biggest potential winner in the whole nV/Intel debacle is AMD by a rather huge margin. If Intel can't ship anything that uses nV's IP they are out of the low end market altogether, their Notebook market is almost completely gone instantly and they would be forced to stop shipments on a good chunk of their current processors. nV would gain nothing in that instance, AMD would gain more marketshare overnight then they could possibly deal with and be supply limited for quite some time(sending their ASP and stock soaring). The best nV can hope for is a return to a very small market they had carved out a small niche in. Intel's ideal situation is that a judge is going to force nV to share their IP without Intel being forced to share theirs. Given everything currently building up against Intel, that doesn't seem like a terribly likely outcome.

Any reason nV hasnt put a lot more pressure on Intel?

It would hurt Intel massively if they lost their entire integrated product line.

 

[lifeblood]

Short term, the elimination of unfair bundling may put a bit more money in nVidia's pocket but by late next year when the integrated CPU+GPU's come out, nVidia is back to square one and pretty much effectively "locked" out of the chipset business once again. And this time legally and not due to unfair business practices.

I disagree. The integrated CPU+GPU is really for the low to middle end. Although nVidia sold chipsets for that segment, the also sold chipsets for the high end where discreet graphics ruled. The merger of the CPU and GPU will not end the discreet market, at least not for us gamers. And even in the low to middle range, a CPU+GPU still requires a chipset of some nature.

Intel makes good chipsets, but not perfect chipsets. Theirs always room for improvement. nVidia can optimize chipsets for their video cards that somehow work in conjunction with the integrated GPU. No, their is still business to be had by nVidia in the chipset market, integrated GPU or not.

The last thing we want is for Intel to not have competion. I think we all know what happens then.

 

[blanketyblank]

After e-bay v. merc exchange intel won't lose its integrated gpus even if NV does prevail.
At most it will have to pay some kind of royalty/licensing fee since an injunction with millions of chips being sold/ and have been sold is going to weigh heavily in the 4 factor test they use.

 

[lopri]

? I know a little bit about that case (eBay v. Merc) but not sure how that case directly relates to Intel v. NV? That case was mostly about injunction. Not sure what those 4 factors are but I'm guessing something along the line of "likelihood to prevail" or "irreparable harm", etc. but I don't think that case means much in a broad scheme of things. It was more about 'technicality' or 'procedure' than substance, iirc.

 

[Hard Ball]

Here's a bit more information, no idea how accurate that is. As usually, it comes from a source "close to the deal"

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/ftc-lawsuit-antitrust-competition-atom,10903.html

Someone close to the deal said that this could curb Intel's use of volume discounts when selling Intel CPUs together with its in-house graphics chips.

This could mean either that intel is simply willing to drop the marketing practices such as pineville bundling, allowing nVidia Ion to have more breathing room. But if taken at face value, it would mean that MCM package (Arrandale, Clarkdale, etc) would get a price raise; although that seems quite unlikely.

Sooner or later, they will have to settle the question of these MCM and no-die "bundling" of IGP functions with an MPU, given intel's dominant position in x86. Perhaps that is actually the snag that they hit this week. Delay of this kind usually means that there is some last minute item in the settlement that two sides can't close on; whatever this issue is, it will make or break the deal.

 

[ModestGamer]

I am not a fanboy but comments like this confuse the hell out of me because I still don't see how this settlement helps nVidia in any meaningful fashion.

The nVidia vs Intel lawsuit is a separate issue and involves patents and licensing rights, not unfair business practices. This issue the FTC is investigating is about unfair business by Intel, such as the unfair bundling of graphics chipsets.

Short term, the elimination of unfair bundling may put a bit more money in nVidia's pocket but by late next year when the integrated CPU+GPU's come out, nVidia is back to square one and pretty much effectively "locked" out of the chipset business once again. And this time legally and not due to unfair business practices.

by definition those are infact unfiar bussiness practices. Intel is throwing its big fat ass around and now they are feeling the sting of picking on the wrong 98pound weakling.

 

[akugami]

I disagree. The integrated CPU+GPU is really for the low to middle end. Although nVidia sold chipsets for that segment, the also sold chipsets for the high end where discreet graphics ruled. The merger of the CPU and GPU will not end the discreet market, at least not for us gamers. And even in the low to middle range, a CPU+GPU still requires a chipset of some nature.

No, most of the upper middle to high end is about discrete GPU's and not integrated. While nVidia created mobo chipsets for the high end (I have an EVGA nVidia based board) the reason nVidia is no longer creating mobo chipsets for the latest Intel CPU's is because of mobo bus licensing issues. Not really GPU related at all.

From the articles, one of the issues brought up was unfair bundling of CPU's and GPU/chipsets. Nothing was made of the licensing issues. In fact, a lot of folks who need powerful CPU's don't even need a powerful GPU, though this may change depending on nVidia's GPGPU efforts. The integration of the GPU within the same die as the CPU has the potential to really cut into nVidia's profits.

Intel makes good chipsets, but not perfect chipsets. Theirs always room for improvement. nVidia can optimize chipsets for their video cards that somehow work in conjunction with the integrated GPU. No, their is still business to be had by nVidia in the chipset market, integrated GPU or not.

The last thing we want is for Intel to not have competion. I think we all know what happens then.

I think Intel's greatest strength in their GPU's has been the low power usage. As far as mobo chipsets, they're not bad but I actually preferred nVidia chipsets while nVidia was able to make them. Again, what's not clear, and I think this FTC investigation will not help is whether nVidia will regain the licensing rights to create chipsets for Intel.

by definition those are infact unfiar bussiness practices. Intel is throwing its big fat ass around and now they are feeling the sting of picking on the wrong 98pound weakling.

Yeah, you're right. But I still stand by my opinion that this won't help nVidia as much as some are hinting/hoping. Seems relatively unrelated to the Intel and nVidia licensing spat.

 

[Hard Ball]

It seems that NV is fully taking advantage of this period of bad press about intel to cement their place as (at least perceived) leader in GPGPU areas:

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/other/...in_Heterogeneous_Multi_Core_Technologies.html

We find that most problems, if not all, are a mix of serial control tasks and parallel data and computation tasks. This is why we believe in heterogeneous parallel computing - both [parallel and serial] are needed. CPUs are commodity technology and there are multiple CPU vendors that we work with. In my opinion, Intel has no particular advantage in developing a hybrid system - in fact, they have had little success historically in designing either parallel machines or programming environments

I think in the highlighted parts you see a general technical strategy why nv thinks it has a serious leg up on intel. The necessity of heterogeneous computing at some point in the future makes it a necessity that each hardware vendor has access to mature and high-performance technology on both superscalar OoO microprocessors, as well as SPDM streaming microprocessors.

The way that intel has been forcing progressive lock-in on vendors will not make it easy for their partners to adopt these technology vectors. This is primarily done in three ways, (1) through some financial or logistic incentives that give OEMs an easier road when locked-in on the intel platform; (2) through actual production of microprocessor packages that are closer to SoC designs and progressively moving co-processor functionalities on die and use the current dominance of their general purpose uprocessor to force vendors to choose; and (3), refusing to license any of its own technology that eases the integration of third party chips into its own platform (QPI, DMI, etc).

So what nv has been saying is that #1 is basically illegal, has been proven illegal in the past, and is continuing to be deemed illegal by just about everyone except intel and its partners that benefited from them (Dell execs are again in hot water this past couple of weeks for their past deals with intel, see: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/23/dells-trouble-kicking-the-intel-habit/ ).

And in regard to #2, if you believe nv's PR campaign, it doesn't really hold water either, because in its view, Intel is basically missing half of the necessary ingredients to make heterogeneous computing work. Larrabee has had serious issues with power consumption, its coherence modes, driver issues with software kernels fully utilizing vector pipeline throughput, as well as inherent inefficiency of requiring an x86 front-end to decode into RISCy mmicroinstructions. And nv probably thinks that it is legally dubious anyways, given intel's dominant position in commodity MPUs in the world, to force vendor lock-ins with this method (sort of like, but not exactly like, IE being preloded on every windows machine). But NV doesn't have a solid legal argument in the US at the moment; nor does it think it needs to, since it thinks that it wins on technological ground.

For #3, it is the most uncertain where NV is going with on its pursuits. Perhaps that's where they have failed to come to a deal so far. What exactly is NV looking for in regard to licensing of technologies from intel; what would FTC have to do to satisfy NV, would a simple small royalty DMI license make nv happy, or are they really shooting for high-end/server playing field; or perhaps even more so do they really want a piece of the x86 pie some time down the road to ensure that they are not shut out by vendor lock-ins in the future.

We will have a lot better idea on these questions in about 10 days or so.

 

[extra]

It would be cool if Nvidia was allowed to make x86 chips. Another potential competitor would be nice. But that's pretty friggin unlikely imho lol. I mean they'd need licenses from AMD as well for x64, right...and the odds of AMD licensing that if they didn't have too are probably about the same as intel willingly licensing x86 to nvidia out of the goodness of their heart. My bet is more on the "nvidia gets jack ****" side of things.

 

[akugami]

It would be cool if Nvidia was allowed to make x86 chips. Another potential competitor would be nice. But that's pretty friggin unlikely imho lol. I mean they'd need licenses from AMD as well for x64, right...and the odds of AMD licensing that if they didn't have too are probably about the same as intel willingly licensing x86 to nvidia out of the goodness of their heart. My bet is more on the "nvidia gets jack ****" side of things.

Technically they are allowed to make x86 CPU's. The problem is that AMD and Intel has added so many extensions to the x86 architecture that would not be possible for nVidia to include without licensing issues. Back to square one we go.

 

[Genx87]

I could see Nvidia eying royalties off any Intel graphics chip sold from now until the patents run out. Make more money doing that than trying to sell into a stagnant\dying market fighting for scraps.

 

[Nemesis 1]

They may want to 'play nice' due to the fact that if they lose the right to nV's IP, they can no longer make any graphics chip with a TMU(a ton of other features too, nV owns all the old 3Dfx patents plus their own). This particular FTC case isn't about the graphics patents Intel is in danger of losing rights too, but they may decide it is better to settle and give up 10% of their chipset business(random number pulled out of thin air) then lose 100% of their integrated graphics and SoC business. Larrabee's design in part failed so shockingly because they were trying to get around nV's IP, even then they realized they couldn't get around the TMU IP, it just won't work with any technology we currently have.

I would debate this issue but it would only turn out the way this debate turned out we had. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/artic...-2ILV3FV1BH8LOEDJ2E18SR90E9.DTL#ixzz0upHBUAAP

You were wrong about that as well as this . Clueless you are young Jetti.

 

[Hard Ball]

Here's the breaking news; I guess we will learn the details in the early morning hours:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/03/AR2010080306819.html

Computer chip giant Intel has settled its antitrust case with the Federal Trade Commission, according to the agency, which will announce the specifics of the deal Wednesday morning.

 

[jvroig]

Settlement details have been published: link

 

[BenSkywalker]

No huge settlement announcement, which we all knew, but this part was interesting I though-

Another provision of the settlement requires Intel to modify its intellectual property agreements with Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD), Nvidia Corp. (NVDA), and Via Technologies Inc. so that those companies have more freedom to consider mergers or joint ventures with other companies, without the threat of being sued by Intel for patent infringement.

http://www.nasdaq.com/aspx/stock-ma...-reach-settlementvarious-restrictions-imposed

Clueless you are young Jetti.

Fermi is shipping, where is Larrabee? You stated with absolute certainty that Larrabee would ship first, where can I buy one?

 

[jvroig]

Fermi is shipping, where is Larrabee? You stated with absolute certainty that Larrabee would ship first, where can I buy one?

Why do you bother arguing with someone who can't even spell "Jedi" correctly? Not that I'm forcing you to stop or anything, just seems counter-productive to me.

 

[Genx87]

Honest question. If this allows Nvidia to buy Via and get an x86 license. Is it worth it to plow resources into a product in a stagnant market with two established players? Mobile devices are going to be huge. x86 doesnt fair well in it.

 

[Idontcare]

Honest question. If this allows Nvidia to buy Via and get an x86 license. Is it worth it to plow resources into a product in a stagnant market with two established players? Mobile devices are going to be huge. x86 doesnt fair well in it.

NV is only just doing well enough to keep their GPU R&D pipeline resourced enough to stay competitive...where would they even get the resources necessary to develop a competitive product to AMD's and Intel's offerings in the six years time that will pass before NV would even bring a product to the market?

Look at how much money and time Intel threw at Larrabee. Look how long Via has been developing their x86 processors and we see just how competitive their products are with AMD and Intel.

NV jumping into x86 would simply be a fool's errand for them. It would be perfect for AMD and Intel if NV starved their GPU development teams while attempting to fund an x86 development team.