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takyon writes:

AMD shares rose to a nearly six-year high [autoplaying video] ahead of its December 13th preview of the company's Zen chips, and amid rumors that AMD will license its integrated graphics technology to Intel:

Nvidia and Intel began suing each other in 2009 over Nvidia's nForce chipsets for Intel CPUs. The suits were eventually settled in 2011: Nvidia agreed not to build chipsets for Intel's Core i7 CPUs, and Intel was free to build graphics cores without getting sued by Nvidia. The price of Intel's freedom was high, though: The chip giant agreed to pay Nvidia licensing fees over the next six years totalling $1.5 billion.

After writing the last $200 million check in January 2016, the licensing deal is winding down, which means Intel has to go shopping for patent protection for its graphics cores. As AMD and Nvidia essentially own the lion's share of graphics patents in the world, developing graphics cores is nigh impossible without licensing deals.

[...] Such a deal wouldn't come cheap, but Intel was already cutting checks of $200 million to $300 million to Nvidia every year. "Intel would have to pony up some significant money to make this deal work," Krewell told PCWorld. "The amount of extra cash AMD could make on royalties would be very appealing to the shareholders."

Fans may be concerned that such a deal would all but give up the last advantage AMD's upcoming Zen-based APUs would have over Intel chips. AMD's Zen core could equal Intel's newest cores in x86 performance. Combine that with AMD's much more powerful graphics cores and you'd have an instant winner. Financial realities, however, overshadow any moral victories. "Is it better to make a royalty on 80 percent to 90 percent of the PC processor shipments or fight it out for the remaining 10 percent or 20 percent?" Krewell said. AMD can make a lot more money partnering with Intel rather than competing.

Also at Nasdaq. Rumor source.

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