Last year's agreement between Intel and AMD has caused a lot of attention on the IT scene. With the history of cooperation and conflict between these companies longs for decades, many were interested in the kind of agreements reached by the companies. We spoke to Rick Bergman, Senior Vice President and General Manager of AMD, who gave us many interesting informations.

InsideHW: Mr Bergman, our readers are especially interested in the information concerning last year’s “agreement” between Intel and AMD. Could you disclose a bit more on the topic?

Rick Bergman: You’re referring to the settlement?

IHW: Yes. Why opt for a settlement? Did you estimate that the trial would take too long, or that the court-assigned compensation in case of a court verdict in your favour would be lower than the offered one? Perhaps it was that the non-financial part of the AMD settlement was more interesting than the money itself?

RB: The negotiations reached a point at one moment where we felt they fulfilled our goals. There are many details that relate to that. Basically, we wanted to provide a fair market competition, taking into consideration patent licences as well as manufacturer ones, in order to better determine the “game rules”. We were satisfied with the results achieved, and of course, securing the compensation for losses caused to AMD by the previous business strategy. It was our estimate that the time was right for such a move.

IHW: When you say patent contract, are you referring to the right to the production of x86-compatible CPUs, or is that not part of this contract?

RB: There are two parts to that contract. The first part involves the exchange of licence rights between AMD and Intel, whereas the second part is Intel giving the licence rights to Global Foundries. Both parts are very important to AMD, since they enable us to be a company completely free of its own factories, while providing Global Foundries an opportunity to be an independent manufacturer of a wide semiconductor gamma.

IHW: Many rumours sparked on the internet saying that the compilers provided by Intel for its CPUs are created in such a way that they provide much worse performance on non-Intel CPUs. Does this deal concern that topic as well?

RB: There are no exact details on that in the settlement, since it only concerns business dealings in general. Nothing exact has been agreed upon as far as compilers are concerned. We know that it’s a part of the FTC charges against Intel, which I cannot comment upon at the moment.

IHW: But you will basically have to provide proof on the subject to the FTC committee if requested to?

RB: Should FTC send a warrant, we will certainly provide any info requested. We do business in full accordance with the law, and will therefore forward any information if requested to by FTC or the EU committee.