By the 1990s, Advanced Micro Devices emerged as Intel’s only real competitor in the microprocessor space. AMD had licensed Intel’s designs for years, but in 1996 it struck out on its own with a (yes, still x86) chip developed entirely by its own engineers. The K5 was poised to compete directly with the Pentium, and in many ways it surpassed the Pentium in technical capability, but it never took off with PC vendors.