Sunnyvale (CA) - The legal battle between Advanced Micro Devices and Intel has become more contentious, as AMD has added to its list of allegations filed against the rival chip-maker.

AMD first filed an antitrust lawsuit against Intel in 2005, claiming that it engaged in unfair business practices in deals with Dell, IBM and HP. The discovery phase has generated an estimated 200 million pages of documents so far.  

And it appears, we are far from reaching the end. AMD has filed new accusations, alleging that that Intel "pays people not to deal with AMD." This new claim is the result of AMD getting a hold of “several” e-mails between Intel and PC makers, according to AMD counsel Charles P. Diamond.

Unfortunately, the public won’t get the nitty and gritty of this new information. The Wall Street Journal said that most of the details in the 108-page court filing are blocked to public access because of a protective order.

Intel's defense is so far is that the microprocessor market simply is competitive and that its business practices were not illegal.  "AMD's complaint about Intel's discounting boils down to a complaint that Intel is a more efficient competitor," the company said in its filing.

One of the key reasons for AMD to add allegations to the suit is support its claim that it needs more time for evidence discovery. The company is asking for several more months to find more witnesses.  

Intel is actively trying to prevent that, though.  "They're asking for way more than is necessary," Intel spokesperson Chuck Mulloy told the Journal.

Desparate & Dirty

May 06, 2008 11:22     

Just Wish AMD would make its processors work better. Adding even a billion pages does not change the fact, that AMD's current silicon is junk. Its a desperate and dirty attempt and will not get them out of the shit they have gotten themselves in. Wish they had invested the same amount to build better and reliable processors.
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Huh?

May 06, 2008 11:57     

How is accusing someone of commiting a crime desparate and dirty? If AMD is wrong then Intel will be acquitted. All AMD is trying to do is fight for a more competitive environment. If AMD64 was never made, Core 2 wouldn't exist. We'd still be living with crappy Pentium 4s...
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@Ashutosh

May 06, 2008 12:08     

you've got to be a troll AMD processors are more stable than Intels counterparts the silicon is junk? Um... right..... atleast AMD doesn't brute force power out of its processors like Intel does as time goes by
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Re: Adam

May 06, 2008 19:58     

"AMD processors are more stable than Intels counterparts" you've got to be kidding right? like WTF is a Tri-core made from a defective quad-core? Quad FX? Not stable enough, and just plain not good enough. Barcelona is marketing hype, turned joke. Intel's current low-end old series processor (Q6600) which AMD likes to slam, is still beating AMD's flagship!! Like WTF!!?
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@Adam

May 07, 2008 02:39     

Just saying something is more stable doesn't make it so, what's your argument that the AMD chips are more stable? Also if AMD ->could
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@all of you

May 07, 2008 04:09     

"like WTF is a Tri-core made from a defective quad-core? Quad FX? Not stable enough, and just plain not good enough. Barcelona is marketing hype, turned joke. Intel's current low-end old series processor (Q6600) which AMD likes to slam, is still beating AMD's flagship!! Like WTF!!?" 2 things boys, 1) disabling a core to leave 3 working is not some junk manufacturing 'epic-fail' load of bs, what would u then call budget gpus with portions of the core disabled? 8800gts 640mb for example, 7900gs, x800 gto, the list goes on, doesnt mean a design is inherently bad. 2)"Its a desperate and dirty attempt and will not get them out of the shit they have gotten themselves in." what are you 5 years old? if theyve got a good case they should bring it. Theyre saying intel *#paid#* companies not to use amd products, and seeing as their share price is supposed to have gone up 9% after submitting their main evidence to the courts, it looks like theyve got some serious dirt that really could stick. PAYING companies not to use your competitors products? THATS 'desperate and dirty'. Chump

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AMD's reasoning behind this

May 07, 2008 04:11     

First of all keep in mind when this was actually filed back in 2005 when AMD had the best processors back in the time of NetBurst which I believe everyone believes now is crap. From what I have read about this I believe that the reason AMD is doing this is because when they had the best products for years they still could not break the Intel monopoly.
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@spoony

May 08, 2008 08:42     

"disabling a core to leave 3 working is not some junk manufacturing 'epic-fail' load of bs, what would u then call budget gpus with portions of the core disabled? 8800gts 640mb for example, 7900gs, x800 gto, the list goes on, doesnt mean a design is inherently bad." Do you seriously think AMD takes a viable quad core processor, willingly disables one, and sells it for less? Why would you waste 1/4 of the manufacturing process that costs you the same regardless of enabled cores? Anyone with sense knows that the Tri cores are "epic fail" quad cores, just like the 486SX were failed 486DX where the FPU wasnt working. Your analogy with graphics card is flawed. Sure, a same family will share the same, or very similar core, but the actual design of the card is different. Smaller memory bus width, different core and memory speeds (not every IC can run at 800Mhz, sometimes it can only work at 700Mhz or it will be unstable). Nobody is talking about bad design, this is just a manufacturing fact. So instead of throwing away the non-premium parts, they create lower end solutions that let them make money. Believe me, if AMD, Intel or anyone else gets their hands on a piece of silicon wafer than can make quad core processors running at 4Ghz, they aren't gonna clock it at 2.4Ghz or disable a core "just for the heck of it" just so you can save a few bucks.

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Also @Spoony

May 08, 2008 17:13     

No offense, but that is the most stupid comment in a long time. Like saying: "Oh the client would not want that core that cost us money to produce (Since the wafer real estate for that core costs nothing) and we have no financial problems and disabling it will have no advantage over our competitor anyway" Read what Ed said.
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@IE

May 08, 2008 22:42     

"Believe me, if AMD, Intel or anyone else gets their hands on a piece of silicon wafer than can make quad core processors running at 4Ghz, they aren't gonna clock it at 2.4Ghz or disable a core "just for the heck of it" just so you can save a few bucks." Yea they would. It will help fill a gap between 2 core and 4 core processors. The lower end is where AMD has a better chance, so they are getting something different in between there to help soak up some of the low end market. Whether or not the core is 1/4 bad, doesn't figure into it, it's a marketing move. They simply want more assortment in the lower end, and this allows them to be unique. It's marketing. Also, yes they would clock something slower and resell it for less. All hardware companies do that right now. Hard drive maker might have a 2 platter drive and each platter holds 200gb, but if they change the firmware so that one drive shows 400gb and another shows 300gb... well look at that, TWO products to sell (cost the same to make) with only a few software bits changed. It's marketing. Same way you can install software and what you can use depends on what key you enter. You want more features? Pay more and they'll give you a key that unlocks more. The features are already there, you just can't see/use them. It's marketing.

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