THERE HAVE BEEN lots of rumblings lately about a settlement between Nvidia and Intel over the chipset lawsuit. SemiAccurate has now heard from multiple sources that a settlement has indeed been reached.
The whispers were confirmed when Patrick Wang, analyst for Wedbush-Morgan, said as much in his note this morning. Mr. Wang is a bit light on details though, saying only, "Lastly, we believe NVIDIA may be in process of settling with Intel, which would nicely pad its balance sheet."
The rumors that have been positively boiling out from one side however say that they, err, Nvidia, will be getting about $1 Billion out of the deal. Intel on the other hand will likely be getting licenses to Nvidia patents, and Intel is rumored to not have given up an 'x86 license' that Nvidia has been fishing for. No word on whether or not a shrubbery is included, that is nothing more than an obscure reference.
Intel seems to have once again done the prudent thing, basically avoiding a patent war in court. While it may seem silly for them to shell out large sums of money when they have done nothing wrong, any patent war tends to result in many of the contested patents being invalidated as an unintended casualty. Intel seems to have done the math and ended up valuing those patents at more than the check they are rumored to have written.
Several sources say that the deal is slated be announced in mid-December.S|A
