CPU manufacturing heavyweight, Intel, is rumoured to be in talks with AMD for a potential GPU patent licensing deal. This is due to the fact that Intel’s current GPU patent licensing arrangement with Nvidia will expire in March 2017.
Intel’s decision to approach AMD for a patent licensing deal comes as no surprise when one considers the fact that AMD is currently far ahead of Nvidia in terms of development for DirectX 12 and Asynchronous Compute.
Intel’s current patent deal with Nvidia is believed to be in the region of US$264 million per year. This deal allowed Intel to use Nvidia’s technology in Intel’s integrated GPUs. If the deal were to go through, AMD will definitely benefit from the potential revenue gained from the patent deal, especially to offset its low APU sales.
Despite this, it is unlikely to see Intel adopting AMD’s overall GPU architecture inside its processors. Whether the patent deal between both AMD and Intel will go through or not remains to be seen. More information is expected to be announced soon.
(Source: ExtremeTech)
