[Info-vax] Poulson at hot-chips 2011

[Neil Rieck]

More 1997 news....

NSR

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http://news.cnet.com/Digital,-Cyrix-sue-Intel-over-patents/2100-1023_3-279719.html

Meanwhile, earlier in the day, Digital Equipment announced that it had
filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in Worcester,
Massachusetts, charging Intel with "willful infringement" of ten
Digital patents related to the company's microprocessors. (Intel is an
investor in CNET: The Computer Network.)


Digital CEO Bob Palmer on why Digital is suing Intel
"I don't mind competing against Intel, but I'd rather not compete
against our own technology," Digital CEO Robert Palmer said. "The time
has come for these unlawful practices to stop."

The patents included in the lawsuit relate to Digital's cache
management, branch prediction, and instruction-processing technology
within the Alpha processor. Patents covering these areas were issued
to Digital between 1988 and 1996.

The lawsuit would stop Intel from using Digital's technology in
current and future chip introductions, according to a company
statement, and seeks an injunction and monetary damage for the patent
infringement.

An Intel spokesman would not comment on the case itself, but he did
offer a reaction to Digital's move: "We are completely surprised by
this. We are especially surprised given our long-standing relationship
from both a customer and technology level with Digital."

Digital includes Intel microprocessors in a line of PCs and servers.
Palmer added that he expected the supply relationship Digital has with
Intel to continue despite the lawsuit.

Palmer said he initially became suspicious of potential infringements
on patented Digital technology when Intel released the Pentium Pro, a
microprocessor that significantly advanced the company's processor
speeds. Then Digital investigated the Pentium series chip and has now
incorporated the Pentium II into their investigation.


Palmer on why the suit will protect competition
The Digital CEO said he was "energized" to action by a Wall Street
Journal article from August of 1996 concerning Intel's increasing
emphasis on processor design research. Intel senior executives Andy
Grove and Craig Barrett are both quoted in the story, which lays out a
plan by the microprocessor maker to innovate because, as the article
states, Intel has done "almost no original microprocessor research."

Palmer's stamp on Digital is directly tied to the Alpha processor. He
initiated research and development activities on the chip and
continues to champion the technology, even though it has not taken off
as he expected and continues to drain Digital resources because of the
huge expense of operating chip fabrication plants. The CEO said the
Digital board has "fully supported the actions we've taken" against
Intel.

The recently unveiled Intel Pentium II microprocessor wraps multimedia
capabilities in a chip that is faster than previous Intel models. The
Pentium II introduction arrives on the heels of the Pentium Pro
processor, which has blurred the price-performance lines between
typical PC-based server computers and high-speed boxes based on RISC
(Reduced Instruction Set Computing) chip architectures.

Digital has kept well ahead of Intel speeds with the RISC Alpha chip
but has not been able to drive the microprocessor as a volume
alternative. The company recently discounted certain versions of the
chip in order to better compete with Intel products.