Hacker News Reader

Comment by debaserab2 | Hacker News Reader

Why can't nvidia legally produce x86 chips?

Because you need a license and very few companies have one.

IP laws strike again. This is like saying someone can't make Lego compatible plastic bricks, or a Torx wrench.

Seem unreasonable to me. Even without a legal protection there is some degree of protection for the original creator something as complicated as a CPU.

Can Intel refuse to sell such license to nVidia or ask for much higher fees than other companies? If nVidia bought one of those companies, would that allow them to produce x86 chips at will?

the license doesn't transfer if the company is bought.

As far as I can remember they would have to buy AMD, VIA or IBM to get a X86 licence. That's just the beginning though as many later patents are also important, but they would likely also be already licensed by these companies (like AMD64 for one). If they could even use the license after a take over.... I don't know.

If AMD got taken over, then they would automatically lose their x86 license, as I believe it is a condition in their cross-licensing agreement. This is why I don't expect AMD to get bought in the near future.

That's correct yes, if AMD is bought then the cross-licensing deals terminate in both directions - i.e. Intel also lose access to the AMD patents.

It's a poison pill which means Intel themselves would be the only serious buyer.

Wouldn’t that mean Intel would really have to negotiate a new deal with whoever buys AMD since otherwise they couldn’t make any new cpus?

Technically AMD could still make ARM[1] or RISC-V based CPUs under a new owner.

[1] https://www.trustedreviews.com/news/amd-reveals-its-ready-to...

> It's a poison pill which means Intel themselves would be the only serious buyer.

Which market regulators would never allow. This is even bigger in terms of monopoly than Nvidia trying to buy arm.

> Can Intel refuse to sell such license to nVidia or ask for much higher fees than other companies?

Yes. There's no requirement to sell licenses to patents in general. Sometimes (not always) if a patent is included by a government in a standard that government will require the owning company to license it on "Fair, Reasonable, And Non-Discriminatory" terms (FRAND). Most patents, including the x86, x86_64, and various extension patents are not required to be licensed under FRAND terms.

AMD and Intel have a mutual licensing agreement. When Intel patents a new extension, they license it to AMD. Likewise when AMD patents a new extension, the license it to Intel. That's why Intel CPUs use the AMD x86_64 instruction set, AMD CPUs use the Intel AVX 512 vector instructions, etc.

AMD only got one for the 286 because IBM wanted a second source supply for their IBM PC's and things got murky when the i386 came around and AMD needed to compete.

There were some copying and I think they settled with AMD licensing the Intel FSB for $$$ (they switched to DEC Alpha bus protocol when the AMD Athlon 64 bit era came around).

With the AMD 64 they licensed it back to Intel when it became clear that Itanuim was dead as it was so slow and Microsoft forced Intel's hand by releasing a version for Windows Server.

The market is big enough for both.

> clear

Yep, but they're both willing to use the patents to keep other entrants out.

Because you need a license to do so and Intel and AMD are loathe to give a license to would-be competitors.

I believe that the person you're replying to is referring to an attempt to produce x86 compatible processors that Nvidia undertook when they bought the license that Via owned.

IIRC that didn't go so well for Nvidia because the license didn't include new parts of the instruction set like the 64 bit instructions that AMD made in the mid 2000s and AMD wouldn't license them.

I do believe they've tried to circumvent the IP by implementing a translation layer like in Transmeta Crusoe, but Intel still threatened them with lawsuits.

Nvidia can't do a translation layer. Back around 2010 Intel and Nvidia were suing each other, the settlement agreement specifically said Nvidia wouldn't produce anything like that

This is a redherring; Amazon and Apple are happier on ARM. Nvidia may have been blocked from buying them outright but are free to still make them.

Nvidia has produced arm cpus, eg for the Nintendo switch.

And Jetson

That is what I am saying; Nvidia don't need or want an x86 license. Thier best move is to dedicate all posible manufacturing to AI but a fallback stratagy might be to outcompete Intel in CPU. (They tried to buy Arm a year or so ago but it was stopped by the FTC.)

The problem with arm is that it is lacking in software support and optimizations compared to x86; it's only recently that there's proof of viability of arm cpus outside mobile through apple, and they also have the advantage of full stack integration and over a decade of experience building the best performing ARM cpus.

So there's a reason why they'd prefer x86. Hopefully they manage to release an ARM competitor for the desktop market, though with AI boom, it seems more likely that it will be a server focused on supporting their GPU lineup.

I think the tipping point was a few years ago. The are simply more Phones/tables/tvs/cars then the have ever been desktop PCs. They tend to be more latency sensitive and resource constrained. Therefor it is unsurprising that more optimization work has been invested in ARM then x86.

Graviton's certainly work out better for every program I have tried on AWS (obviously this is mainly because AWS set the price to ensure they do).

I mean the are complex x86 programs that run just as fast for longer on battery on a M1 then a comparable Dell/Lenovo.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com