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AMD-Motorola deal takes form

SEC filing fills in some of the *****

When AMD struck an alliance with Motorola at the end of 1998, we knew that part of that deal was the copper and interconnect technology the latter developed. But the alliance, which lasts seven years, is much more wide ranging than at first appeared. The long appendix to AMD's filing on the 29th of March is full of gaps, marked *****, which concern secrets that it and Motorola don't want competitors to know. But as with any document, lacunae are often pretty easy to decipher. A summary of the agreement appears in the main body of the 10K form AMD filed and reads as follows: "In 1998, we entered into an alliance with Motorola for the development of Flash memory and logic technology. The alliance includes a seven-year technology development and license agreement and a patent cross-license agreement. The agreements provide that we will co-develop with Motorola future generation logic process and embedded Flash technologies. The licenses to each generation of technology vary in scope relative to the contributions to technology development made by both companies. "Subject to certain conditions, the companies will share: ownership to jointly developed technology and any intellectual property rights relating to such technology; development costs for mutually agreed upon facilities, tasks and technologies; and foundry support. In addition, we will gain access to Motorola's semiconductor logic process technology, including copper interconnect technology. "In exchange, we will develop and license to Motorola a Flash module design to be used in Motorola's future embedded Flash products. The licenses to logic process technologies granted to AMD may be subject to variable royalty rates, which are dependent on the technology transferred and subject to certain other conditions. Motorola will have additional rights, subject to certain conditions, to make stand-alone Flash devices, and to make and sell certain data networking devices. The rights to data networking devices may be subject to variable royalty payment provisions." We have noticed that AMD has now pointed to the complete filing from its own site to the address: AMD filing so suggest you look at the 40 plus pages of the full agreement there. There's also interesting information about its current fab arrangements in this document. ®

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