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Israeli engineers accused of stealing Transmeta's technologies in Core 2 Duo.
posted by Sharikou, Ph. D. @ 10/11/2006 03:34:00 PM
36 Comments:
"..The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Delaware, alleged Intel infringed or is infringing on Transmeta's patents with several iterations of its popular Pentium chips -- including the Pentium 4 and Core 2 product lines."
Pentium 4 is how old?
http://news.com.com/2061-10791_3-6124918.html
"Transmeta came out with its first chips in 2000 that could work inside Intel-based computers. Unlike other x86 vendors, however, Transmeta never had a patent license from Intel. AMD or National Semiconductor, who made x86 chips at that time, did have a license. At the time, some expected Intel to file suit against Transmeta. "
"A couple of product delays, layoffs and CEO changes later, Transmeta refashioned itself into an intellectual property firm. It licenses its patents and occasionally goes to court."
Sounds like Transmeta is the one playing dirty.
"Man bites dog!"
According to CNET, the suit goes back to PIII times, which means technology dating back to the 1997 time frame (release was spring 1999). There are only a few Transmeta patents that were filed before that timeframe, so one could probably demonstrate prior art.
Furthermore, IP suits are the nature of the business, particularly when you are a failed company with only a few patents to your name. Intel could have wiped out Transmeta years ago for IP violations (no x86 license), but didn't. Go take a look at AMD's annual report- Spansion is currently a defendant in IP lawsuits from Tessera and TI. The likely outcome? Cross-licensing agreements...
Yawn. Get me a real headline.
Intel/Israel/Microsoft. Just a bunch of nasty thieves.
Intel hires criminals to steal technology rather than innovating. Is this really a suprise?
Where did you get "Israeli engineers" from that article?
Did they also do the work on the P6 generation of chips, which includes the Pentium Pro and Pentium II?
Oh (col)well...
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=35011
Barcelona aka K8L ( Kanine )
technology is reviewed.
http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/77909774/m/750004831831
Silly AMD, letting themselves getting bought by DELL.
Transmeta's just trying to force Intel to buy them out, as there is prolly no other way to get Intel to do this at this time. If Transmeta has a legit claim against Intel, then the board could negotiate a very sweet buyout indeed. Clearly, Intel cannot withdraw sales of any of these chips at this time.
Sorry who copied intel x86 first?
AMD..
Everybody wants a cut of the king..
Another example of a company failing in the real world and whining in the courtroom. Real men and companies compete whiners and loser go to court.
[i]Sorry who copied intel x86 first?
AMD..[/i]
In February 1982, AMD signed a contract with Intel, becoming a licensed second-source manufacturer of 8086 and 8088 processors. IBM wanted to use the Intel 8088 in its IBM PC, but IBM's policy at the time was to require at least two sources for its chips.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Micro_Devices
I never believe Sharikou's Intel-BK prediction but he might got lucky. If Transmeta wins the law suit, Intel will probably BK.
But wait, law suit will draaaag out for a long time, not in 5-6 quarters. So, Sharikou will be still wrong, regardless. Haha...
-Longan-
Sharikou,
I find your blog generally funny. No real content, but it is good for a laugh.
However, what is not funny, is the anti-semitic tone/comments you seem to have embraced. If you really hate jews (or any other group of people) please leave it out of this discussion--which should be focussed on 64 bit computing.
Sorry who copied intel x86 first?
AMD..
Everybody wants a cut of the king..
Another example of a company failing in the real world and whining in the courtroom. Real men and companies compete whiners and loser go to court.
Typical Intel behaviour. AMD LICENSED i386 from Intel. They did not copy. In fact, AMD had often come out with faster processors when they were still under contract (eg AMD 486DX 120Mhz). When the contract ran out, AMD had no choice but to EMULATE i386 in their cpus. Just like how Transmeta EMULATED i386 in their processors.
Transmeta was to first on the scene with a low power processor. Given the way Intel does its business, I would absolutely not be surprised if Intel actually COPIED Transmeta technology without a license.
All these Intel worshippers really make you sick. Just like the object of their worship, they lie and use abuse tactics to 'win'.
Real men and companies compete whiners and loser go to court.
You are totally clueless. Real companies protect their IP, in a court of law or any other means they can. R&D is very expensive and also very valuable.
Typical Intel behaviour. AMD LICENSED i386 from Intel. They did not copy.
No. AMD developed am386 all by itself.
Intel should sue Transmeta for using the x86 architecture without a licence. There are probably tons of Intel patents that they have violated too. I'd draw a nice long list and sue the hell out of them.
AMD is allowed to use x86 legally, AMD and Intel have a broad agreement that allows them to virtually any of each others technology. That's how Intel implemented AMD64 in its processors, and how AMD added SSE to its processors etc. Intel could even, theoretically, implement HyperTransport in it's processors and chipsets!
This talk of people wanting either AMD or Intel to bankrupt is seriously crazy. We need both Intel and AMD. Both companies have to continually innovate to stay competitive with the other. This means faster and cheaper processors for all of us. We have the same situation in graphics with ATi and nVIDIA. Who can argue with that!?
Typical Intel behaviour. AMD LICENSED i386 from Intel. They did not copy.
No. AMD developed am386 all by itself.
Ah, sorry my mistake. Should have checked first.
Oh well, didn't Intel get sued by Digital (and lost) for copying the Alpha technology for the Pentiums?
If I recall correctly, Pentiums were the first Intel CPUs to suddenly break free of the 100s of MHz constrain. Intel suddenly ramped up their Pentium speeds very very quickly after years of doldrums.
Turned out they were copying DEC Alpha technology.
DEC sued and won.. one of the settlement terms included Intel buying over old DEC fabs as well as a provision for DEC to sell Alpha technology to Intel for a pre-determined sum. DEC was bleeding badly then.
Years later, Compaq (then owner of DEC) invoked this provision to sell Alpha (plus engineers) to Intel.
No. AMD developed am386 all by itself.
No, am386 was a CLONE of the 80386 cpu. Am386 was copied from Intel's designs (legally, after litigation of course).
Althought it wasn't a perfect copy, it was damned close and was built on technology that Intel provided AMD with.
Go look it up.
Intel should sue Transmeta for using the x86 architecture without a licence.
Unfortunately, there is no law that can protect x86. You can't copyright an instruction set, and you can't patent it. The only thing Intel could do was trademark, but they used names such as 386/486, which are numbers and could not be trademarked.
The x86 name was probably invented by someone other than Intel.
BTW, note that AMD64 is a trademark. If Intel puts AMD64 compatible label on its CPU, it will infringe AMD's trademark.
BTW, note that AMD64 is a trademark. If Intel puts AMD64 compatible label on its CPU, it will infringe AMD's trademark.
Which is why they took AMD64 and just renamed it EMT64. Crude, but I guess it works. :)
Which is why they took AMD64 and just renamed it EMT64. Crude, but I guess it works. :)
People understand EM64T is emulated, they will want true AMD64.
People understand EM64T is emulated, they will want true AMD64.
Just like AMD emulated x86? Guess that means you want an Intel chip hmm?
Which is why they took AMD64 and just renamed it EMT64. Crude, but I guess it works. :)
People understand EM64T is emulated, they will want true AMD64.
wow, you guys really has no idea on what's in the chip. what's in your mind/blog are simply FUD againt intel.
Intel didnn't emulate the AMD64 but implement the AMD64 compatible instruction. May be you do not like what this sound, how about i say AMD didn't emulate the SSE/2/3 and later SSE4 (after nahelem), but implement the instruction compatible (along with the needed hardware). The later statement sounds like a song to your ear right? (but not the earlier one i guess :))
it is really you that do not understand .. not only the emulation part, but almost everything, from technical to financial.
"People understand EM64T is emulated, they will want true AMD64."
What exactly makes EM64T more emulated than AMD64? HW side they are compatible, both have the same number of same sized registers and all.
Anyway, x86 is a crappy instruction set anyway, even in 64bit.
"Anyway, x86 is a crappy instruction set anyway, even in 64bit."
AMD64 is much better than i386. AMD took the chance to get rid of some really crappy/aging x86 designs. Now those "legacy mode" need to be emulated in AMD64.
The biggest problem IMO of x86 is that it's little-endian, while the Internet transfer is inherently big-endian.
"Anyway, x86 is a crappy instruction set anyway, even in 64bit."
For all its inadequacies, Linus Torvalds once came out in defence of it.
:)
" Sharikou, Ph. D said...
Typical Intel behaviour. AMD LICENSED i386 from Intel. They did not copy.
No. AMD developed am386 all by itself. "
AMD won the right to second source I386 but Intel played hard-ball and kept delaying giving the IP to the design.
So, AMD locked up a couple of their best engineer and bought a specimen Intel386 and pop the metal cover up.
They capture the die info, peeling off one layer of the time to reconstruct the design. Thus, that was AMD386 was born.
And I would like to add AMD386DX-40 (40Mhz) was a big hit. It was more popular than the Intel486DX-25 (25Mhz).
Only Intel486DX-33 would beat AMD386DX-40 down.
-Longan-
"The biggest problem IMO of x86 is that it's little-endian, while the Internet transfer is inherently big-endian."
My idea of biggest problem with x86 is way too few registers. In some scenarios I've seen speed doubling just because register file doubled in size. Not having to transfer things between L1 and registers is dead slow, wastes power and bandwidth not to mention it needs to process more instructions to do it.
If I'd been AMD I would at least quadrupled the register sizes, not only doubled. 16 is nice but 32 would have been quite a bit better. Part of why Power is/was so good with mutimedia was its rather big register file.
"If I'd been AMD I would at least quadrupled the register sizes, not only doubled. 16 is nice but 32 would have been quite a bit better."
Yes the lack of GPR is a big problem of x86. I'd like to defend AMD's choice of 16 rather than 32, though, because even now, 3 years after AMD64 was released, most computers still do not run in 64-bit mode. It'd just be silly to waste 100% of register file (and more silicon area due to more complex wiring) for 90% population for 3 years.
If you look at the design of AMD64 opcode prefix, there is room to address up to 64 GPR with perfect backward compatibility (to current AMD64).
I remember the AMD fanbois getting whipped into a FAP FAP FAP frenzy over Intel being sued by Intergraph. They were howling with delight when Intel agreed to pay over 300 million dollars, but then Intergraph went after AMD, forcing AMD to fork over 25 million dollars.
The difference is Intel made tens of billions in profits and paid out 300 million, AMD was losing money and had to pay 25 million.
What I dont get (and others have pointed out) is how Transmeta copies x86 without a patent agreement, then has the balls to say Intel violated their IP!
And for the brainless out there, IP disputes happen all the time, fanbois not used to reading such documents get excited but for AMD, Intel, IBM, TI, etc; its just part of doing business.
Even when there is infringement, chances are its not intentional; get your hand off your love log and get a grip on reality instead!
What I dont get (and others have pointed out) is how Transmeta copies x86 without a patent agreement, then has the balls to say Intel violated their IP!
Let me enlighten you then you Intel worshipper. Transmeta did not copy anything. The Crusoe has its own instruction set. x86 code was run in a software virtual machine. So after running a while, the Crusoe would improve by a few percentages its performance in running x86 code.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusoe
Your anti-semitic remarks would be irritating if you weren't such a nobody. Seriously, it's like a 2 year old calling you a poopy-pants, who's going to get mad over it.
As for the latest attempt at the patent system lottery, it's a non-issue and it's boring, just like you.
Let me enlighten you, AMD worshipper.
"Transmeta did not copy anything. The Crusoe has its own instruction set. x86 code was run in a software virtual machine."
The Transmeta chip emulated an Intel x86 processor. Doing it in software does not mean you are not stealing IP, it just means your product is going to be slow and sucky like the Crusoe.
I laugh at the AMD fanboy FAP FAP FAP frenzy; should TMTA get a couple bucks from Intel you can bet AMD is next.
The Transmeta chip emulated an Intel x86 processor. Doing it in software does not mean you are not stealing IP, it just means your product is going to be slow and sucky like the Crusoe.
Intel worshippers prove again that they are like the company they worship. Spouting misinformation (Intel 64) or should that be outright lies?
Show me the revelant section of law that says that using a virtual machine to run code of any sort is illegal.
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