Because of the settlement, AMD customers should rest a bit easier.
"Lawsuits always carry a degree of uncertainty and distraction about them," Gordon Haff, analyst for market researcher Illiminata Inc., said. "The affect on AMD's partners, however, is secondary. The impact really isn't huge for the partners as much as the chipmakers themselves."
In general, chipmakers indemnify customers against patent-infringement suits stemming from technology used in their microprocessors.
In 1997, Intergraph filed its first lawsuit against Intel, claming its Pentium chips infringed on its Clipper patents. Intergraph later made similar claims against Intel's Itanium server chip.
The two companies settled all litigation between them, but not before Intel agreed to pay a total of $675 million. Those settlements also ended a dispute Intergraph had with Intel customer Dell, which has an indemnification contract with Intel.
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