Over the last year, AMD executives have been abandoning ship for rival Nvidia, and according
to a new lawsuit, they took confidential information about the Xbox 720 and PlayStation 4 with
them.
Engadget reports that AMD has filed suit against four ex-employees, claiming that the executives
absconded with thousands of confidential documents, including sensitive information about technologies
at use in next-gen consoles.
As our well-placed sources told us last year, custom silicon based on AMD's A8-series APU
and HD 7670 GPU will be used in the PlayStation 4, while the Xbox 720 will combine an IBM
PowerPC CPU and a custom version of AMD's 6670 GPU.
The lawsuit targets the former VP of AMD's Strategic Division, Robert Feldstein, who
played a key role in developing custom hardware for game consoles like the Xbox 360, Wii,
and Wii U.
AMD claims that he and others transferred 100,000 files that contain trade secrets related
to development, based on "forensically-recovered data" that indicates the executive used external
storage devices on his company computer before his departure.
What's more, Feldstein and Richard Hagen, another AMD executive, lured two other employees
to Nvidia.
With Nvidia seemingly edged out of the upcoming console generation, Feldstein could be the
key to regaining a role in future console hardware.
Whether or not he has or will use proprietary data stolen from AMD to help achieve that
goal remains to be seen.
For more on this story, stay tuned to IGN.