Intel locks horns with Nvidia over chip spat

Nvidia claims its previous licensing deal lets it produce chipsets for Intel's latest processors

A licensing fight between Intel and Nvidia is headed to court.

The case centres around an argument between the two sides concerning licensing rights for Intel's Nehalem chip.

Nvidia contends that its previous licence deal allows it to produce chipsets for the latest processors, while Intel claims that it has no licensing agreement for the newest line of processors equipped with integrated memory controllers.

Two days after Intel filed suit against Nvidia over the matter, the graphics chip specialist struck back in a written statement.

"Nvidia has been attempting to resolve the disagreement with Intel in a fair and reasonable manner for over a year," read the statement.

The company claims that the move has less to do with any sort of patent or licensing agreement between the two sides than it does bitterness from Intel over what Nvidia sees as a shift in the industry to putting a greater onus on graphics processors.

"We are confident that our licence, as negotiated, applies," said Nvidia president and chief executive Jen-Hsun Huang.

"At the heart of this issue is that the CPU has run its course and the soul of the PC is shifting quickly to the GPU. This is clearly an attempt to stifle innovation to protect a decaying CPU business."

Nvidia noted that the case will have no effect on any of the products it currently offers.