AMD Awaits $650M Decision: Grant Vote Looms, but the Chip-Maker's Plans in Saratoga County Remain Unclear
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By Larry Rulison, Albany Times Union, N.Y.  Dec. 19--ALBANY -- The state's Public Authorities Control Board is expected to vote Wednesday on a $650 million grant for Advanced Micro Devices Inc. to build a $3.2 billion factory in Saratoga County.
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Advanced Micro Devices gave further details of its&#160;upcoming Fusion processor, saying it will be based on the design of a microprocessor used in the desktops currently shipping to enthusiast PC users such as gamers.The Fusion chip, which will combine a graphics processing unit and CPU on one chip, will be a redesign of the company&#39;s current&#160;Phenom processor, said Patrick Moorhead, vice president of advanced marketing at AMD, in an interview. However, the Fusion chip will witness significant design changes from the current iteration of Phenom, Moorhead said.The Fusion chip, code-named Swift, will be shrunk from the Phenom core and be optimized for use in a notebook, Moorhead said. The optimization will focus on making the chip more power-efficient while increasing graphics capabilities, Moorhead said.The graphics processing unit on the Fusion chip will include multiple &quot;mini-cores&quot; that breaks down code from a program, like 3-D games, to process data faster, said John Taylor, an AMD spokesman. Fusion&#39;s graphics processor will be based on a graphics card AMD plans to release in the near future, Taylor said, declining to give details.The first Fusion chips will be released as dual-core CPUs for notebooks, followed by quad-core CPUs for notebooks, Moorhead said. The dual-core notebook processors will be available in the second half of 2009, said John Taylor, an AMD spokesman. The company didn&#39;t provide a timeline for the quad-core chips.Fusion chips will also be released eventually for desktops, Taylor said, although he declined to comment on a release date.Originally released as part of the &quot;Spider&quot; multimedia platform last year, the Phenom processor has an integrated memory controller, cache, and four cores on a single chip. Currently available in speeds up to 2.3GHz, AMD earlier this month delayed the shipment of the faster Phenom 9700 and 9900 quad-core processors to the second quarter. The company is due to ship a triple-core Phenom processor later this year.The Fusion CPU is part of Project Shrike, the next-generation platform that will be an upgrade to the company&#39;s upcoming Puma platform. It includes the Turion Ultra processor, code-named Griffin. The Puma platform boosts a system&#39;s graphics performance by running both the integrated graphics processor and a graphics card attached to the motherboard together.Like Puma, additional graphics cards can be attached to boost performance of systems based on Project Shrike, Taylor said.Fusion chips will be made using AMD&#39;s 45-nanometer production technology, said Mario Rivas, executive vice president of the computing products group, during a meeting in December.Fusion isn&#39;t being designed for ultramobile PCs, Moorhead said. &quot;The jury is still out on whether the UMPC market has legs or not. But we&#39;ll see,&quot; Moorhead said.Plans to launch the Fusion chip were announced when AMD bought ATI for US$5.4 billion in 2006. The acquisition of ATI was also viewed as a potent weapon in AMD&#39;s attempt to dent Intel&#39;s domination of the x86 processor market. However, AMD has struggled lately, announcing five straight quarterly losses, delaying processor shipments, and falling behind Intel in chip production.Intel has already rolled out more than 30 Penryn-based chips based on the 45-nanometer process, with AMD still producing chips using the older 65-nm process.
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A competing chip from rival Advanced Micro Devices will likely arrive several months earlier.
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The quad-core server chip won't appear until later this year, but AMD's trying to show potential customers the chips are up and running.
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Figuring it's had enough of fighting over options, the chip giant is waiting to see what Congress comes up with.
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By Bob Mims, The Salt Lake Tribune  Feb. 13--Fallout from Micron Technology Inc.'s dire price forecast for  the flash-style memory that powers everything from iPods to laptops sent its  stock and that of other semiconductor makers tumbling Monday.
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The Motley Fool - The Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL - News) rumor mill has been hard at work lately, with plenty of folks prognosticating about what exactly Steve Jobs would announce today in the company's "It's Showtime" event. I found the actual announcements mostly underwhelming, with some potential bright spots on the horizon.
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No hard feelings. Intel (nasdaq: INTC - news - people ) has hired away hundreds of engineers from Hewlett-Packard (nyse: HPQ - news - people ). However, it is unlikely to cause friction between the chipmaker
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(InfoWorld) - Advanced Micro Devices' move to cut overhead costs by outsourcing its chip manufacturing business may backfire in the long run, according to several analysts who have downgraded the company's stock. AMD is struggling it keep its head above water after posting losses of $611 million and $574 million for its past two quarters. The company has also drawn criticism for its manufacturing, with recent reports that it will delay the full-volume launch of the "Barcelona" quad-core Opteron server chip from July to October. That would hobble AMD in its effort to compete with surging rival Intel. Although AMD's Opteron has won over many users of Intel's Xeon server chips since its launch in 2003, that trend is now in a sharp reversal, according to a June 13 report from Jon Peddie Research. In the market for workstation processors, AMD had pushed Intel's share down to 87.6 percent in the first quarter of 2006, but Intel has rebounded since then, reaching 92 percent share in the first quarter of 2007. The building pressure recently prompted some analysts to predict that AMD might stop manufacturing any chips at all and convert to a fully outsourced business model as soon as 2008. AMD said that rumor had come from a "speculative" Goldman Sachs report, but confirmed that the company is trying to focus its efforts on developing chips instead of manufacturing them, according to AMD spokesman Drew Prarie. AMD currently has a deal giving it access to IBM's chip fabrication plant in East Fishkill, New York. Under that arrangement, AMD can perform much of its research and development without having to incur the cost of owning its own manufacturing plant, he said. "We're looking to find ways to extend that model beyond research and development to the full range of the manufacturing supply chain," Prarie said Monday. "That could run the range from increasing the amount of processors we send out for chartered manufacturing, and could also include things like establishing partnerships on the manufacturing side." AMD has already taken some steps in this direction. In 2006, AMD announced a plan to give Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing a heavier load, asking the firm to begin making the new 65-nanometer scale Athlon chips and other processors. And in May, AMD announced that it hadÂ awarded the job of manufacturing its newest graphics chips to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC). Now the company may be preparing to expand that model, according to a June 17 report from Citigroup analyst Glen Yeung. AMD is on the verge of making a "transformational move" such as outsourcing a larger share of low-end processors to TSMC, selling a share of the manufacturing capacity in its Fab 30 chip-making plant in Dresden, Germany, or even selling a share in its planned $3.2 billion chip plant in Saratoga County, New York, Yeung wrote. Despite AMD's insistence that such an arrangement would simply allow it to stay in the chip business while cutting costs, the uncertainty makes Wall Street analysts nervous. The Citigroup report lowered its estimate of AMD's future revenue from $1.3 billion to $1.1 billion for the second quarter, and from $5.8 billion to $5.6 billion for the full year of 2007. Those figures would represent a flat performance compared to AMD's performance last year, with $1.22 billion of revenue in the second quarter of 2006 and $5.6 billion for the full year. "We are again lowering AMD estimates, this time for 2Q07 (we had previously lowered 2H07), reflecting our field checks suggesting current conditions are weak," Yeung wrote. While Citigroup recognizes that AMD could be moving away from its own manufacturing and that could help the company cut costs, "we remain on hold for the shares given near-term weakness," he wrote. In contrast, Yeung said Intel would continue to enjoy a competitive advantage thanks to theÂ potential delay of AMD's Barcelona chips, the rising popularity of Intel's new Santa Rosa notebook platform, and the continued sales of Core-family chips for desktop PCs.
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Advanced Micro Devices Inc. AMD.N,   the world's number two maker of microchips for personal   computers, will supply China's second-largest PC maker with   chips, scoring its latest victory in a market share battle with   bigger rival Intel INTC.O.
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After its recent delays and missteps, chip maker sets its sights on a dual-core future.
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Plus, Intel's still straining, revenge of the nerds, and a $13 billion Christmas present?
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, 8/30/2004. With 90 nanometer chips now on the market, the race for the next node - 65nm -- is now underway. Intel is on track for initial production of chips based on 65-nanometer process
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Eyeing Sun's Niagara flow Intel has confirmed plans to "tick" and "tock" AMD into submission.â¦
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After a bout of good fortune, AMD finds itself coming to grips with a resurgent Intel. Plus: Can software keep up with multicore technology?
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SUN ANNOUNCED THE UltraSPARC IV+ this morning, most probably the last of its line. Sun will be taking a new direction from this point on, with the new Fujitsu co-developed chips being a definite step sideways
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roundup Plus: Via brings PCI Express to AMD PCs...Rice lab makes nano parts less toxic...TV chip company gets $19 million.