NVIDIA Intel Chipsets Expected Feb - April 2005

Nvidia and Intel have signed a multiyear cross-licensing agreement that entitles Nvidia to build chipsets for Intel’s processors, the companies announced Friday. Under the agreement, Nvidia will receive a license to build chipsets using Intel’s front-side bus design, and Intel will have a license to Nvidia’s patents for high-end graphics technology. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

Intel’s PC customers now have the option to build systems with Nvidia’s nForce chipset as a result of the agreement, said Chuck Mulloy, an Intel spokesman. Nvidia’s first chipsets for Intel processors are expected between February and April of 2005, an Nvidia spokeswoman said.

…Although the headquarters of both chip companies are just a few miles apart in Santa Clara, California, prior to Friday’s agreement Nvidia and Intel had not worked together on chipsets since the days of Intel’s Pentium III processors. Nvidia primarily makes graphics processors for PCs, but it is also one of the largest vendors of chipsets for Advanced Micro Devices Inc.’s Athlon 64 processors. It also built the chipset for Microsoft Corp.’s XBox gaming console, which uses an Intel Pentium III processor.

Intel holds about 70 percent of the market for chipsets based on its processors, according to a research note distributed Friday by financial analyst Ben Lynch of Deutsche Bank Securities in New York. Nvidia will now compete for the remaining 30 percent with ATI, Via, and SIS, Lynch said. Nvidia has done fairly well selling chipsets for AMD’s products, but it is starting to face more competition from Via and probably felt it needed another market in which to sell its chipset technology, Krewell said.

Nvidia signs chipset license with Intel @ PC World AU