Intel to Pay NVIDIA Technology Licensing Fees of $1.5 Billion

[btarunr]

NVIDIA announced today that it has signed a new six-year cross-licensing agreement with Intel. For the future use of NVIDIA's technology, Intel will pay NVIDIA an aggregate of $1.5 billion in licensing fees payable in five annual installments, beginning Jan. 18, 2011. NVIDIA and Intel have also agreed to drop all outstanding legal disputes between them.

"This agreement signals a new era for NVIDIA," said Jen-Hsun Huang, NVIDIA's president and chief executive officer. "Our cross license with Intel reflects the substantial value of our visual and parallel computing technologies. It also underscores the importance of our inventions to the future of personal computing, as well as the expanding markets for mobile and cloud computing."

Under the new agreement, Intel will have continued access to NVIDIA's full range of patents. In return, NVIDIA will receive an aggregate of $1.5 billion in licensing fees, to be paid in annual installments, and retain use of Intel's patents, consistent with its existing six-year agreement with Intel. This excludes Intel's proprietary processors, flash memory and certain chipsets for the Intel platform.

The existing agreement is to expire March 31, 2011.

Pursuant to U.S. GAAP, a portion of the proceeds will be accounted for and attributed to the settlement of prior legal claims. This amount, which NVIDIA anticipates to be less than $100 million, will be included in the company's fourth-quarter results.

The balance of the licensing fees will be accounted for on a straight-line basis over the six-year term of the agreement. Accordingly it is anticipated that this would amount annually to approximately $233 million of operating income and an increase in net income of $0.29 per diluted share, on a full year basis.

[wolf]

interesting... no wait the other one.. tedious.

[random]

Wow, these two companies are like a married couple ...

[skellattarr]

i wonder if nvidia will ever make chipsets for amd again

[GSG-9]

Originally Posted by randomflip

Wow, these two companies are like a married couple ...

I like that expression.

[Bjorn_Of_Iceland]

thats a lot.. and looks like their up to 20 dollars from 14-16. http://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ:NVDA

[Delta6326]

yummy stocksssssssssssssssssssssss

[afw]

Teaming up to take down AMD ???

[Jamborhgini313]

Invidia

[RejZoR]

Originally Posted by skellattarr

i wonder if nvidia will ever make chipsets for amd again

They weren't bad but i wouldn't call them great either. Especially driver support was crappy and just cut off after a while. I was on nForce 2 at that time...

[Frick]

Originally Posted by RejZoR

They weren't bad but i wouldn't call them great either. Especially driver support was crappy and just cut off after a while. I was on nForce 2 at that time...

Sound and overclocking was pretty good though, at least on my Abit NF7-S.

[Mussels]

Originally Posted by RejZoR

They weren't bad but i wouldn't call them great either. Especially driver support was crappy and just cut off after a while. I was on nForce 2 at that time...

Originally Posted by Frick

Sound and overclocking was pretty good though, at least on my Abit NF7-S.

nvidia chipsets just got worse after that. unstable boards, sata controllers corrupting drives, certain chipsets killing memory... etc etc.

not to mention their shit drivers - all nvidias old drivers are useless for their older hardware

[dir_d]

hmm...is intel trying to pick up some GPU techniques to battle AMD?

[nINJAkECIL]

maybe Intel licensing nvidia's SLI to be implemented on their new LGA2011 chipset.

[Mussels]

Originally Posted by nINJAkECIL

maybe Intel licensing nvidia's SLI to be implemented on their new LGA2011 chipset.

thats my guess. intel paid big to get SLI on their chipsets, rather than give nvidia a licence to make nforce chipsets for the new sockets.

[Swamp Monster]

Originally Posted by btarunr

Under the new agreement, Intel will have continued access to NVIDIA's full range of patents.

So that's from where Sandy bridge GPU came from!
Also they realised that Larabee was screw up, so they now learn from Nvidia's patents, to revive it. They should call their next GPU a FrankenGPU - It's aliveeeeee

[Bundy]

Originally Posted by Mussels

thats my guess. intel paid big to get SLI on their chipsets, rather than give nvidia a licence to make nforce chipsets for the new sockets.

meh, 1.5 B pays for a lot of Sli licences. I think it is literally like what Btarunr said, for access to all their patents. Invidia PC's, Invidia consoles, Invidia phones, Invidia tablets - everything. This is a big deal they have put together.

[Red_Machine]

Originally Posted by Mussels

certain chipsets killing memory...

The 980a, by any chance?

Originally Posted by Bundy

Invidia PC's, Invidia consoles, Invidia phones, Invidia tablets

Heh, another original Xbox. Yay.

[LittleLizard]

nforce again?

[wahdangun]

Originally Posted by LittleLizard

nforce again?

no nvdia won't make any chipset for intel again, because that was not part of he deal, but nvdia have access to certain patent intel have, and its look like nvdia will make their own CPU based on ARM architecture.

btw this deal was nothing new, intel just extended their deal, and the deal have running since 2004, but i'm really curious if intel have access to nvdia patent then why they still making shity GPU ?

[marsey99]

it was my understanding that this was more like the old deal than the current one :/

both parties sharing, but nothing states what each is sharing.

would be good to see nv do the mobile board chipsets with intel cpu and intel doing the desktops for nv aic and igpgpu. how good would it be to have sli power on tap when you need it but igp power draw when your not gaming.

[Mussels]

Originally Posted by marsey99

it was my understanding that this was more like the old deal than the current one :/

both parties sharing, but nothing states what each is sharing.

would be good to see nv do the mobile board chipsets with intel cpu and intel doing the desktops for nv aic and igpgpu. how good would it be to have sli power on tap when you need it but igp power draw when your not gaming.

AMD, nvidia and intel are all heading in that very direction.

"green" is the current focus of PC's atm, and dedicated GPU's are an easy target

[newtekie1]

I was kind of hoping this would open the door for nVidia to make Intel Chipsets again(and AMD chipsets), because I'm tired of the lack of competition. This is especially evident on the Intel side.

Some competition from nVidia on the chipset front might mean we would stop seeing chipsets with only 16 PCI-E lanes for graphics cards, forcing x8/x8 operation with two graphics cards and no chance of 3+ graphics cards. Even back in the 775 days nVidia's lowest end chipset had x16/x16 support. That was one of the reasons I like 750i. It was as cheap as P45, provided all the same features, but provided x16/x16 graphics slots. It just didn't overclock as well as P45.

Originally Posted by Mussels

thats my guess. intel paid big to get SLI on their chipsets, rather than give nvidia a licence to make nforce chipsets for the new sockets.

I don't think Intel paid nearly as big as many believe, if they paid at all. All Intel paid out was in legal fees to keep the legal despute about the new sockets going, forcing nVidia to pretty much have to give SLi support to Intel chipsets to keep SLi a viable option. Loosing SLi support on the biggest highest performing platforms while ATi had Crossfire support would have been a killer blow to nVidia. And the licencing fees are paid by the motherboard manufactuers, not Intel.

[cadaveca]

I have attached the agreement for those who would like to read it. It has been redacted though.

[nINJAkECIL]

“Patents” shall mean all classes or types of patents other than design patents
(including, without limitation, originals, divisions, continuations, continuations-in-
part, extensions or reissues), and applications for these classes or types of patents
throughout the world (collectively “Patent Rights”) that (a) are owned or controlled
by the applicable Party or any of its Subsidiaries or to which such entities have the
right to grant licenses in each case at any time on or after the Effective Date, and (b)
have a first effective filing date during the Capture Period and to the extent that the
applicable Party or its Subsidiaries has the right to grant licenses within and of the
scope set forth herein and without the requirement to pay consideration to any third
party (other than Subsidiaries or to its and their employees) for the grant of a license
under this Agreement.

enlightmen me, for I don't do well with "lawyer's words":
So, nvidia will not give out their gpu design patent to Intel.But Intel does has access to nvidia software, drivers, etc...
...I see Intel will make use CUDA-compatible products...