AMD Japan Gets Evidence Against Intel
A Tokyo court on Friday granted AMD Japan access to evidence compiled by Japan's Fair Trade Commission on rival Intel, which the chipmaker plans to use as part of a lawsuit it filed against the company in June.
The JFTC had found that Intel violated antitrust laws by forcing quotas and coercing customers not to buy AMD processors. Specifically, one OEM was coerced into agreeing to purchase all of its CPUs from Intel, while another was mandated with an Intel-imposed quota of 10 percent non-Intel purchases.
Other findings concluded that Intel began to use its "Intel Inside" program and market development funds to limit computers to exclusively carry its processors after rival Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) began to grow its market share in 2000 to 2002. Transmeta was also said to be a target of Intel's.
"We believe the JFTC's evidence will show what people inside our industry already know well -- that Intel abuses its monopoly position to threaten and intimidate OEMs not to do business with AMD," AMD executive vice president Thomas McCoy said in a statement.
"What's at stake is the future of computing in a world economy that grows more dependent on microprocessors daily. Consumers across the globe are being harmed by Intel's abusive monopoly- preservation tactics through higher prices, stifled innovation and reduced choice," he continued.
The Japanese case is separate from a lawsuit AMD filed against Intel in the United States in July, alleging similar anticompetitive practices.
Last April, the European Commission also began looking at Intel with a watchful eye after it was discovered that the procurement practices of several of its member states calling for Intel-based machines violated EU statutes.
In the U.S., AMD claims that Intel sabotaged the performance of its CPUs by crafting a routine for its compiler to build programs along un-optimized -- and perhaps even dangerous -- code paths for AMD processors, all while optimizing performance for its own "Genuine Intel" chips.