AMD first entered the CPU market with reverse-engineered Intel 8080 clone 50 years ago — the Am9080 cost 50 cents apiece to make, but sold for $700

The chip which paved the way for AMD’s illustrious future, eventually creating some of the best CPUs we've ever tested, entered mass production 50 years ago. AMD’s Am9080 had something of a shady origin, as it was a reverse-engineered and cloned Intel 8080. However, due to the importance of second-sourcing among organizations that would end up buying boatloads of 8080 microprocessors (e.g., the military), Intel and AMD eventually reached a licensing agreement, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Copycat origin

The Am9080 is the result of some very difficult-sounding, yet derivative, work. In the summer of 1973, during their last day working at Xerox, Ashawna Hailey, Kim Hailey, and Jay Kumar took detailed photos of an Intel 8080 pre-production sample, says Wikipedia.

Armed with approximately 400 detailed images, the trio managed to draft schematic and logic diagrams and then hawked them around Silicon Valley to see if anyone was interested.

AMD took the bait, as you may have guessed, and thought the processor could be useful to run on the N-channel MOS process it had just developed. Some sources suggest that initial runs of the Am9080 were sold by AMD in 1974 — the same year Intel debuted the processor commercially. However, it would not be until 1975 that AMD marketed and mass-produced the Am9080.

Made for 50 cents, sold for $700

Pondering the information we have about how much AMD could manufacture the Am9080 for and how much they could sell it for, mass-producing these chips was a great foundation and business-building enterprise. Various sources indicate that a single Am9080 processor cost AMD only 50 cents to make (100 per wafer), yet it could sell them to military customers for $700 each.

Agreement with Intel

In 1976, AMD was presented with another great opportunity to profit from its clone of Intel's 8080. Sidestepping interminable legal wrangling, AMD grabbed the chance to sign a cross-licensing agreement with Intel, granting them authorization to become a ‘second source.’

This wasn’t done out of the goodness of Intel’s heart, of course. Some lucrative contracts (e.g., military, again) required key components to have second sources. So AMD and Intel inked a deal, which meant AMD paid Intel $25,000 on signing and $75,000 per year for licensing. The deal also released both parties from liability for past infringements.

WikiChip (linked top) notes the agreement would become the foundation for important future accords between the chipmaking rivals, notably the expanded agreement in 1982, which allowed AMD to make its own x86 PC processors. AMD’s first chip under the expanded agreement would be its Am286 (1982), a licensed version of the Intel 80286.

Am9080 variants ran at up to 4.0 MHz

AMD produced many variants of the Am9080 to propel its chip-making business forward. Of the 28 versions WikiChip lists, clock frequencies range from 2.083 to 4.0 MHz, and min/max operating temperatures range from models with a modest 0-70 degrees Celsius operating range, to the MIL-STD-883 compliant ‘AM9080ADM’ (for example), which was capable of computing in environments as cold as -70 to as hot as 125 degrees Celsius.

Am9080 chips had a significantly smaller die than the Intel 8080 that they copied. AMD’s more advanced and compact N-channel MOS fabrication process made this possible. Like now, the more advanced semiconductor process also enabled higher clocks. Intel’s 8080 processor SKUs were never produced with clock speeds above 3.125 MHz.

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