Intel Licenses Pentium to U.S. Government

Staff -- Semiconductor International, 2/1/1999

Intel (Santa Clara, Calif.) and the Department of Energy (DOE) announced that Intel will provide a royalty-free license for its Pentium processor design to the government for development of custom made microprocessors for space and defense purposes. The agreement is expected to save hundreds of millions of dollars in microprocessor design costs and provide the government with a nearly 10-fold increase in processing power over the highest performing technology now used in military and space applications.

Intel representatives said the company would license the design to the DOE's Sandia National Laboratories, which is responsible for microelectronics research and development. Sandia will develop a custom, radiation-hardened version of the Pentium processor for use in satellites, space vehicles and defense systems.

Sandia, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) and the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) will collaborate on the Pentium processor redesign to meet each agency's radiation-hardened microprocessor requirements. Applications will include earth satellites, space probes, missile defense and other advanced military systems.

In recent years, the rapid pace of design innovation for commercial integrated circuit applications has outdistanced the budgetary ability of military and space users to design comparable performance-integrated circuits for radiation environments. Intel developed the Pentium processor at an estimated cost of more than $1 billion.

The licensing agreement highlights a long-standing relationship between Intel and Sandia in the development of advanced technologies. Intel Chairman Emeritus Gordon Moore was instrumental in advancing the agreement and directed the transfer of the first Intel microprocessor designs to Sandia over 18 years ago.

Intel provided similar rights to Sandia in the 1980s for the Intel 8085 and 8051 microcontrollers. Intel also built the world's first teraflop computer for Sandia under government contract in 1995. There have been numerous other cooperative research and development projects over the years.