3D Wars heeft een artikeltje over de historie van AMD in elkaar geklust. Hier de intro:
The speeds of today's processors are insane. Remember a Pentium 90? A 486? If you do, the latest Athlon 750 and Coppermine 733, manufactured at .18 microns seems like they belong in a science fiction novel and not in my Dell. Intel's first processor, the 4004 was almost archaic when compared to today's processors. It contained a measly 2300 transistors. Thirty years later, most processors have 5 œ million transistors and calculate millions of operations per second. With little competition, Intel managed to rapidly advance clock speeds and move the computing world to new heights and new capabilities. In February of 1992 a small company (relative to Intel) called Advanced Micro Devices ended a five year arbitration process with Intel, allowing them full rights to make and sell all Am386 processors. Then in March 1 of 1994 AMD won a lawsuit gaining them rights to Intel's 287-math coprocessor microcode. AMD would become Intel's toughest competition in years.
