The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) has subpoenaed Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) as part of an antitrust investigation into the market for graphics processors and graphics cards, AMD said Thursday. AMD recently entered the graphics chip business with its acquisition of ATI Technologies, which was finalized last month. The DoJ has not made any allegations against AMD or ATI, and AMD intends to cooperate with the investigation, it said.While the DoJ hasn’t said specifically what it is investigating, one industry analyst speculated that the case could be about price fixing. The DoJ has already charged a number of chip companies in the dynamic RAM (DRAM) memory chip market with price fixing, and is investigating several in the static RAM (SRAM) chip market.“If the DoJ wanted to, it could just go down every line in the semiconductor industry and find the same issue,” said Gartner analyst Richard Gordon. That’s because there are a relatively few number of suppliers in the chip industry and an open flow of communication between competitors and customers, who may not define price fixing the same way the DoJ does, he said. The investigations are unlikely to benefit end users, according to Gordon. Historically, prices in the chip industry have gone up and down based on supply and demand, and he doubts that such investigations will result in lower pricing. A spokeswoman for AMD in Europe, Hollis Krym, said she did not know if the investigation has a broad scope and includes other graphics chip companies or if it is in the context of the ATI acquisition. U.S. antitrust authorities have already approved AMD’s merger with ATI. In the DRAM market, the DoJ has charged Samsung Electronics, Hynix Semiconductor America, Elpida Memory and Infineon Technologies with price fixing and sentenced the companies to pay multimillion-dollar fines.Sony, Cypress Semiconductor and the U.S. arms of Mitsubishi Electric, Samsung Electronics and Toshiba have all been asked to turn over information to the DoJ for an investigation into SRAM price fixing.-Nancy Gohring, IDG News Service (Dublin Bureau)Related Links: Mitsubishi SRAM Sales Probed by U.S. DoJ SRAM Industry Probe Hits Toshiba U.S. Expands SRAM Antitrust Probe to Samsung Samsung Exec Pleads Guilty in DRAM CaseCheck out our CIO News Alerts and Tech Informer pages for more updated news coverage. Related content opinion Website spoofing: risks, threats, and mitigation strategies for CIOs In this article, we take a look at how CIOs can tackle website spoofing attacks and the best ways to prevent them. By Yash Mehta Dec 01, 2023 5 mins CIO Cyberattacks Security brandpost Sponsored by Catchpoint Systems Inc. Gain full visibility across the Internet Stack with IPM (Internet Performance Monitoring) Today’s IT systems have more points of failure than ever before. Internet Performance Monitoring provides visibility over external networks and services to mitigate outages. By Neal Weinberg Dec 01, 2023 3 mins IT Operations brandpost Sponsored by Zscaler How customers can save money during periods of economic uncertainty Now is the time to overcome the challenges of perimeter-based architectures and reduce costs with zero trust. By Zscaler Dec 01, 2023 4 mins Security feature LexisNexis rises to the generative AI challenge With generative AI, the legal information services giant faces its most formidable disruptor yet. That’s why CTO Jeff Reihl is embracing and enhancing the technology swiftly to keep in front of the competition. By Paula Rooney Dec 01, 2023 6 mins Generative AI Digital Transformation Cloud Computing Podcasts Videos Resources Events SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe