The European Commission issued formal charges against Intel last night for allegedly using illegal tactics against smaller rival Advanced Micro Devices (AMD).
The Commission, the European Union's top antitrust regulator, has spent years investigating tactics used by Intel, which employs 5,500 in the Republic, to determine whether it acted unfairly to preserve its dominance over AMD.
The two companies make all the central processing unit (CPU) chips at the heart of the world's one billion personal computers and servers.
AMD has sued Intel in the United States, South America and other jurisdictions, but no judgments have been made by courts.
On July 19th, AMD posted a 13 per cent rise in quarterly revenue but reported a $600 million loss.
AMD gained market share against Intel in 2005 and most of 2006, but suffered a downturn later last year when Intel rolled out powerful new processors and cut prices on older models.
AMD's market share at the end of 2006 was 25 per cent of unit shipments for processors that act as the brains for almost all the world's personal computers.
But by the end of March 2007, AMD had slipped to less than 19 per cent, according to market research firm Mercury Research.