This is the first of a five-part series on Intel versus AMD. Stick to this column every Wednesday to read how this saga unfolds.

Intel has been the leader in the processor market for a while, with an 80 - 82 per cent market share worldwide. Advance Micro Devices (AMD) has been trying to tap into Intel's dominance but has done so with little or no success. The question is "what is it that makes Intel dominates the world of processors this much?"

Intel, formerly known as Inte-grated Electronics Corporation, was founded in the late '60s and so was AMD. They both thrived into the '70s, working separately on their own versions of the 8080 processor. However, in the mid-'80s, AMD decided to switch gears and concentrate solely on Intel-compatible microprocessors.

raging war

This decision landed AMD in direct competition with Intel for X86 compatible processors. This led to the beginning of what would become the raging war for microprocessor supremacy Intel versus AMD.

What exactly are X86 processors? The X86 processors are the most commercially successful line of processors. The X86 is the generic name given to Intel processors after the original 8086 processor. This included the 80286, 80386, 80486 and 80586, the name derived from the model numbers, ending in '86', off the first few processor generations compatible with the original Intel 8086. Technically, X86 is short for 80x86, since the 'X' could represent 2,3,4,5, etc. The '80' is normally removed to avoid redundancy. Note: the 80586 processor name was changed to Pentium due to trademark related issues.

catapulted Intel ahead

Now that we have a summary as to what the X86 processors are, let us now move on to the matter at hand. Intel is the inventor of the X86 series of microprocessors, which in fact are the most successful processors to date. Intel was an early developer of memory chips (SRAM, DRAM) as well; this represented the majority of their business until the early '80s. It wasn't until the success of personal computers (PC) before Intel invested heavily in new microprocessor designs, fostering the rapid growth of the PC industry. This along with the development of the X86 processors, catapulted Intel ahead of AMD for microprocessors.

As the battle for the microprocessor market raged on throughout the years, Intel and AMD had outdone all other microprocessor developers and were both standing at the top of their game, or were they? It became quite obvious that Intel was the dominant supplier of microprocessors for PCs by the 1990s and was known for their aggressive and sometimes controversial tactics in defence of its market share, especially against AMD.

But, were the tactics used by Intel really controversial? Or, were they just simply business and marketing strategies? Or, was it a case that Intel processors were simply out performing AMD's processors? If the last statement is true, where Intel processors may have been outperforming AMD processors, the performance difference have got to be significant, which is simply not true. If Intel processors are outperforming AMD processors, the performance difference is minute. This means that Intel outperforming AMD processors cannot be the only reason Intel gained an 82 per cent market share in the processor market.

There has to be other reasons why Intel got so dominant in the market. Yes, we know they are a bigger company and yes, we acknowledge the fact that they introduced the X86 series processors. We also know that the X86 architecture landed Intel much success, but bear in mind, the X86 series was also developed by AMD under an agreement with Intel made in 1982, but in 1987 Intel cancelled the agreement with AMD. This left AMD out in the open as Intel didn't tell AMD about the new X86 series processor (80386).

Look out for Part Two next Wednesday as we look at the possible effects the cancelled agreement had on AMD.

For questions and comments

Technical writer: Kamar McIntyre

Tel: 849-9381

Email:

kamar_mcintyre@yahoo.com