Intel terminates Via

A TAIWANESE web site has a slightly different take on the relationship between Intel and Via that another site, Digitimes, reported earlier this week.

According to the Taiwan Economic News, rather than Intel coming to an amicable agreement with Via to stop a licence for embedded CPUs, the picture is rather different.

Intel terminated the agreement, said the newspaper. Via will use its own V4 Bus from the 1st of April, which - for all we know - might be a fair bit better than whatever Intel licensed to it.

Via has started making money out of embedded CPUs during 2005 and the sector accounts for as much as 30 per cent of its monthly revenues, said the report.

Intel and Via struck the deal several years ago as part of an overall agreement. But we know that Intel wants to make more money in the embedded arena, and it must be gritting its teeth, particularly as a senior exec at Intel Taiwan went and joined Via last year.

According to the report, Via has drawn blood on the industrial embedded front and the strategy has brought it fortune.

This particular deal has no impact on the chipset agreements between Via and Intel which have another seven years to run.

Via has long been a thorn in Intel's hide, particularly as it pushed the firm eventually to support DDR memory. Then there was the balloons incident. But that's history now, so we won't pick at old wounds. Much. Now. µ