NVIDIA Exiting Chipset Business Pending Resolution of Licensing Dispute With Intel

Thursday October 8, 2009 9:22 am PDT by Eric Slivka
ZDnet reports on NVIDIA's announcement yesterday that it will "postpone further chipset investments" in the wake of licensing issues involving Intel's Nehalem and Core processors. NVIDIA's chipsets including integrated graphics processors are currently used throughout Apple's low-end lines, and the shift to NVIDIA was seen as a significant improvement over Intel's similar chipset offerings.

Intel claims that its four-year-old chipset license with NVIDIA doesn't cover the Nehalem or Core series of CPUs. NVIDIA naturally disagrees with this and as a result is that both parties will fight it out in court sometime in 2010.

Sources claimed in early July that Apple would be dropping NVIDIA's chipset from its computers amid dissatisfaction over manufacturing defects in recent products, although the claim was quickly refuted by other sources. Regardless of Apple and NVIDIA's relationship, however, the dispute with Intel over licensing appears to be signaling an end to their chipset partnership.

In addition to the Intel issue, NVIDIA is also ceasing development of chipsets for AMD processors, noting a lack of demand for such products. Finally, a recent report claims that NVIDIA is also exiting the mid- and high-end standalone graphics card market, although the company has apparently called the rumor "patently untrue".

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