Chip set, match
The EU findings packed a punch, but were by no means the first antitrust rumblings to hit Intel. Both South Korean and Japanese authorities had also wrapped the firm's knuckles for purported antitrust violations which saw AMD being frozen out of the market. South Korea even went as far as fining Intel $26 million in June of last year.
Back in 1999, Intel had its first run-in with the US FTC, but the chipmaker settled those charges. Meanwhile, also in the US, AMD filed suit against its much larger rival, saying it was monopolising the $280 billion chip market. That case has yet to go on trial.
But now it seems the FTC may be taking an active interest again, not just scrutinizing Intel's business practices in the microprocessor space, but also its chip set business.
Back in May 2009, NVIDIA's Chief Executive, Jen-Hsun Huang, took issue with Intel's bundling practices, claiming it was patently "unfair" that the firm was selling its Atom chip by itself for $45, but would sell it for just $25 if paired with an Intel chipset. This, said Huang, was an anti-competitive business practice which froze NVIDIA and its competing Ion chipset out of the netbook market.
Then, just a few weeks ago, NVIDIA announced it would also be freezing other chipsets which should have been compatible with Intel's new generation of processors.
An NVIDIA statement said this was "because of Intel's improper claims to customers and the market that we aren't licensed to the new DMI bus (a technology that connects components) and its (Intel's) unfair business tactics, it is effectively impossible for us to market chip sets for future CPUs."
