x86 licensing would make that impossible.

How so?

AMD is definitely looking for markets for their products beyond traditional desktops and laptops. Absolutely the right direction to be going.

Intel already gave Globalfoundries a hard time about producing x86 chips saying they needed another license because the one from AMD does not apply to GF.

As it stands now AMD/GF, Intel, and VIA are the only companies licensed to work with x86. Companies who want to alter the Bobcat CPU would be stuck with AMD as designer and GF as the fab. Intel would have to start handing out licenses for x86, and that won't happen because it would help AMD. There will be a few versions of Bobcat straight from AMD/GF and that's it, same as Atom.

From a Daily Tech article about Bobcat, et all:

"Ontario will feature 2 Bobcat cores paired with an AMD GPU. The combined system-on-a-chip (SoC) will be produced at the 40 nm node at TSMC's chip fabs."

Now, I guess it is possible to fab the Bobcat cores at GF and ship the wafers to TSMC to test/cut and combine the SoC but seems like it would be better to do it all in the same fab.

The only companies currently allowed to work on x86 cpus are Intel, Via, and AMD. Intel for they own the patents and Via and AMD due to lingering licenses from the 80s that are good indefinitely (unless the companies are bough, merged, etc)

Here is the small part where you were wrong, since the FTC settlement with Intel, one of the key provisions is that the other licenses of x86 (via and amd) may use other fabs to do their designs, thus they can use TMSC or GlobalFabs or one of the other Fabs in the world.

AMD now no longer has to use GlobalFabs for their designs, they can use any fab including TMSC.

dicobalt and Roland00 -- Thanks for the sanity check, and I nominally agree. However, a few points worth clarifying...

The Intel licenses are not perpetual. AMD renewed theirs ~1996 (no idea when it expires). Via's expires in 2013, although the FTC settlement requires Intel to extend that for 5 years.

The FTC settlement is an important change, but agree it's unlikely to allow for the full range of ARM-like licensing. (Intel may ultimately regret that, as ARM's licensing mode has produced a far deeper and wider base. Intel has been largely successful by attacking from below over the last three decades; it would be ironic if Intel forgot that lesson and suffered the same fate from ARM. But that's another subject.)

In any case, the FTC settlement provides more wiggle room for licensees, but does not specify the boundaries in any detail; relevent excerpt from the FTC(http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2010/08/intel.shtm):

In addition, the FTC settlement order will require Intel to:

- modify its intellectual property agreements with AMD, Nvidia, and Via 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;

Obviously the "mergers" (and by extension, acquisition/divestuture) of that verbiage is aimed squarely at addressing Intel's threats against such as AMD-GF, and maybe a Via-??? merger/acquisition/whatever.

The "joint venture" part is more intriguing... So what if Apple, or MSFT, or whoever came to AMD and said "We'll pay you to produce an x86-based SoC for us. In addition to an x86 core, it needs X, Y and Z, which we'll provide. And BTW we want at least two independent fabs capable of providing it. The IP will be put in escrow and made available to another x86 licensee (e.g., Via) in case you flake out or tank. And after providing it to us exclusively for N years, you're free to sell it to whoevver you want, subject to royalties of $x/unit."

Such is typical of joint ventures, but will it pass muster based on the FTC settlement? Hard to tell, but I'd bet AMD's, Via's and Nvidia's lawyers are working furiously to get as much as they can while the pressure is on Intel. (And who knows, it may save Intel/x86 from themselves, because Intel's greatest threat is surely not AMD or Via, but ARM).

Haven't Intel already opened Atom to such customizations?

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