Updated: The License Agreement: Intel to Pay NVIDIA $1.5 Billion

Update 2: Our full analysis of the agreement is now available here: Intel Settles With NVIDIA: More Money, Fewer Problems, No x86

In about 30 minutes NVIDIA will host a conference call to announce its 6-year $1.5 billion license agreement with Intel. Intel will pay annual installments totaling $1.5 billion over 6 years beginning January 18th.

We'll have full details after the conference call. The license agreement stems from the Intel/NV dispute over the right to build chipsets that interface with Intel CPUs that use DMI/QPI instead of the traditional GTL+ FSB.

After Project Denver and the Tegra 2 announcements at CES, it looks like NVIDIA is shaping up to have a good start to 2011.

Update: While we're still working on our full rundown of the agreement, there's been some speculation over at Ars Technica about what this agreement means for Intel; specifically claiming that NVIDIA GPUs will be appearing in Intel CPUs, on the basis of the fact that Intel is licensing NVIDIA technology. I'm not a lawyer (though I do play one on the Internet) however I disagree with this reading - Intel has to license NVIDIA technology to avoid running afoul of the company's large patent portfolio with their own IGPs. It's for all practical purposes impossible to build a desktop GPU without infringing on an AMD/NV patent. This agreement allows Intel to continue producing their IGPs, just as how the original 2004 chipset agreement allowed Intel to produce more modern IGPs in return for NVIDIA getting a chipset license. -Ryan Smith

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