As most people know, the two major players in the graphics technology department AMD and Nvidia has the lion's share of patents in the world. Rumor has it that the deal between Intel and AMD has been sealed as AMD's GPU will be in Intel's iGPU.
Forbes cited the statement of HardOCP chief editor, saying that the licensing deal between AMD and Intel is signed and done for putting AMD GPU tech into Intel's iGPU. The person behind this is Kyle Bennett during a forum post last Dec. 5, 2016. Although he has been in the industry for a number of years, he must have credible sources to have spun such rumor.
But if you take a good look at the picture as to why Intel and AMD would join forces, the rumor might be quite true. The agreement between Intel and Nvidia ends on March 31, 2017, Intel now needs a new patent. The agreement between Intel and Nvidia began in 2009 as a lawsuit filed by each other over the nForce chipset from Nvidia for Intel CPUs. The settlement between Intel and Nvidia gave birth to the about-to-expire agreement that has amassed a massive $1.5 billion payment from Intel to Nvidia.
The agreement was Nvidia would not build chipsets for Intel's Core i7 CPUs and Intel has freedom to build graphics without being sued again by Nvidia, according to NewsDog Today. While AMD needs funding, it is understandable that they would grab the hottest opportunity from Intel.
Digital Trends noted that since this is just one rumor with multiple possible interpretations, another possibility could be that both Intel and AMD would enter a licensing agreement around graphics technology to avoid any possible patent battles. This is because the previous agreement between Intel and AMD only includes CPU technology.
Either side of the involved parties have released any official statement as of this writing, and these are just pure speculations. Stay tuned for more details.
