AMD scored an IP licensing deal and has more in the pipeline

In its third quarter earnings release, AMD revealed its gross margin was up last quarter thanks to a combination of an intellectual property (IP) related deal and a richer revenue mix. Not a lot of details where shared about this IP deal, AMD said the revenue and profit was spread over both of its business segments but refused to share any specifics.

In response to a question from a financial analyst, AMD CEO Lisa Su replied AMD has several other IP deals in progress:

Vivek Arya - Bank of America Merrill Lynch
Thanks for taking my question. For the first one, I was wondering if you could help quantify the benefit of your IP license in the two different segments, and is this a one-off? Or do you see ongoing benefits in Q4 and beyond?

Dr. Lisa T. Su - Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
Sure, Vivek. Hey, thanks for the question. We did close a IP-related transaction. It was a patent licensing transaction. The revenue and benefit was spread over both segments. When we look at it going forward, we have a pipeline of IP deals and we're constantly looking at them. And from our standpoint, we're working several deals in progress. So we believe that IP-related revenue will be a factor as we go forward, but our primary focus is on the product-related revenue and the product-related growth.

Perhaps this is related to last month's rumor about an IP licensing deal between AMD and Tesla.