AMD To Spin Off Manufacturing Division

[MAC]

As many of you are already, yesterday it was announced that AMD would spin off their manufacturing side into a seperate company in partnership with an Abu Dhabi investment firm.

"In a move to dramatically cut costs and better compete with Intel Corp., chip maker Advanced Micro Devices Inc. said Tuesday it will spin off its factories into a new joint venture with investors in the Persian Gulf state of Abu Dhabi.

The deal should shore up AMD's finances and let it focus on the design and development of computer chips. The new venture, to be based in the U.S. and called Foundry Co., will absorb AMD's manufacturing plants, including two in Dresden, Germany.

In conjunction with the spin off, Abu Dhabi's investment arm, Mubadala Development Co., will invest $314-million to more than double its current stake in AMD to 19.3 per cent from 8.1 per cent.

Another entity backed by the Persian Gulf state, Advanced Technology Investment Co., will invest $2.1-billion for a stake in Foundry Co., which also will assume about $1.2-billion of AMD's existing debt. Advanced Technology Investment then plans to contribute between $3.6-billion and $6-billion to Foundry Co. over the next five years to fund the expansion of the company's chip-making capacity. That plan includes the construction of a new facility in Saratoga County, New York."

More...

Official page

[cwestwell]

Now what is going to happen to AMD's Royalty deal with Intel over the Use of their X86 architecture...lest we forget AMD would not exist if it wasn't for IBM forcing Intel to create a competitor for their themselves by licensing out their X86 tech and from this AMD was born. Know a seperate company exists that will have access to Intel Patents....will their finally be a new architecture born from this or will Intel shut down AMD's plan by revoking their X86 agreement.

[encorp]

Nothing Intel can do, once they relinquished those rights back in the day it left AMD open to do whatever it is they wanted with it. They still own the second firm they're just acquiring new investors and splitting it off so that the manufacturing debt won't necessarily reflect directly on AMD; this leaves them open to push development of ATI and AMD further. I think it's a good thing!

[MAC]

Originally Posted by encorp

Nothing Intel can do, once they relinquished those rights back in the day it left AMD open to do whatever it is they wanted with it.

Actually, it is licensed intellectual property, Intel didn't relinquish anything.


So yes, Intel's lawyers will undoubtedly be pouring over the details.

[Phobia]

cool. Good for amd. Not that i like AMD ;) but still, it'll help them create better products, hopefully.

[DarKStar]

Originally Posted by cwestwell

Now what is going to happen to AMD's Royalty deal with Intel over the Use of their X86 architecture...lest we forget AMD would not exist if it wasn't for IBM forcing Intel to create a competitor for their themselves by licensing out their X86 tech and from this AMD was born. Know a seperate company exists that will have access to Intel Patents....will their finally be a new architecture born from this or will Intel shut down AMD's plan by revoking their X86 agreement.

This is a major mistake for AMD - they are shooting themselves in the foot and I would expect Intel to be a winner and people switching over. New architecture ? Are you kidding me ? What about the millions and millions of computer users and existing applications ? You think people will dump all their x86 OS, apps, etc, no way - My AMD Athlon 64 x2 will be my LAST AMD CPU, after that I will be switching to Intel - AMD is making one mistake after another.

[MAC]

Originally Posted by DarKStar

This is a major mistake for AMD - they are shooting themselves in the foot and I would expect Intel to be a winner and people switching over. New architecture ? Are you kidding me ? What about the millions and millions of computer users and existing applications ? You think people will dump all their x86 OS, apps, etc, no way - My AMD Athlon 64 x2 will be my LAST AMD CPU, after that I will be switching to Intel - AMD is making one mistake after another.

AMD will not be ditching x86 any time in the foreseeable future, I guarantee it.

[cwestwell]

I certainly didn't expect AMD to bring us past X86 but bring it up to highlight WTF will they do if Intel pulls that plug..its all they have aside from mediocre chip sets and ATI which still isnt even paid for.

[DarKStar]

Don't even get me started on the crappy chipsets part - :D As much as I've been using AMD chips sine the K6, I have noticed lately AMD has been cutting corners - the stock heatsinks are absolute JUNK - Recently I ordered a couple of retail CPUs and one of the heatsinks was different than the others, and did not have ANY screws holding the fan to the heatsink - The processor box was SEALED, chip was never used. The CPU runs extremely hot with the stock cooler, running at very close to threshold - something that never was the case for me with older chips and i'm not even overclocking. The problem with AMD CPUs is that you are stuck with shitty chipsets - I think AMD is headed for difficult times - one would expect that their own chipset would be decent for their own CPUs.....

[Phobia]

darkstar, do you play cod4?