Advanced Micro Devices was nearly a year late to market with its quad-core microprocessors compared to Intel Corp., but the firm seems to be optimistic about its roadmap execution going forward. The company says that its octa-core microprocessors are due in 2009, whereas chips with more than eight cores can be made thanks to AMD’s architecture.
AMD IS QUIETLY cutting five per cent of its workforce. Pink slips have been handed out now. The cuts are going to be across the board, not targeted at any specific group.
Whispers also say that this is because the chip maker is going to badly miss numbers this quarter, and it is taking preemptive moves to get costs under control. Too little, too late, too badly aimed, or not aimed it seems. With the earnings in free fall, expect a press conference in a day or two to explain the problem, and how they are dealing with it via the axe.
AMD has named former Dell v-p Ahmed Mahmoud as chief information officer (CIO).
Mahmoud, who has 20 years experience in enterprise information technology (IT), most recently as v-p of IT at Dell, will be responsible for managing AMD’s global technology infrastructure.
“Ahmed’s success using IT as a competitive differentiator to scale the business will help AMD tremendously as we expand our own infrastructure to best meet internal needs and better serve a growing customer base,” said Dirk Meyer, president and COO, AMD.
Advanced Micro Devices Inc. is pushing back the release of two Phenom processors just as it speeds up the release of what it's calling an energy-efficient quad-core chip.
In November, AMD announced that its upcoming Phenom 9700 and 9900 processors would ship in the first quarter of this year. John Taylor, a spokesman for AMD, told Computerworld today that they're being pushed back to a second-quarter delivery.
"We blew it and we are very humbled by it." So said AMD CEO Hector Ruiz, yesterday, referring to the company's troubled quad-core desktop and server processors. Significantly, AMD admitted that a design tweak will be necessary before the chips can be sold in full retail volumes.
On Friday, I thought I'd identified the translation-lookaside buffer (TLB) bug which AMD said was responsible for problems it's having with its new Barcelona and Phenom quad-core processors. Now, two readers claim that the bug is more serious than I suggested. The reason is, while there is a BIOS workaround, they claim the fix results in a big performance penalty. (There's also an operating system fix with no performance hit.) This may be why heavy volume shipments don't seem to be in the cards until Q1, when updated silicon, now being readied, is available.
Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE: AMD) on Friday said it has stopped making the Quad FX platform that was launched late last year for power-insatiable computer enthusiasts.
The platform comprises up to two dual-core Athlon 64 FX processors, which operate in conjunction with Nvidia's SLI chipset that makes it possible to run multiple graphics cards that work together in projecting one image on a display. The overall platform targets gamers who often use multiple cards to boost game performance.
The Abu Dhabi government’s wholly-owned investment and development subsidiary Mubadala Development Co. has invested $622 million in Sunnyvale, Calif.-based microprocessor maker Advanced Micro Devices (AMD).
Headquartered in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, Mubadala is receiving 49 million newly-issued shares at a price per share of $12.70, the closing price of AMD common stock on November 15, for its non-controlling, minority investment.
Advanced Micro Devices is not delaying 45-nanometer manufacturing, according to the company, which is trying to correct an erroneous report on a blog.
According to an AMD-funded research project performed by Dr. Michael Williams of the ERS group, Intel's monopoly in the CPU industry is responsible for $60 billion in profits from 1996-2006. This conclusion is ostensibly based on a number of factors, including:
* Recent findings of the European Commission and the Japan Fair Trade Commission in 2005.
* The rarity of firms that consistently return a 16%+ rate of economic return
* Negative average economic returns earned by other semiconductor companies.
