AMD Gives Up Its Share In GlobalFoundries 107
MrSeb writes "Three years ago today, AMD spun off its fab division, in a move the company claimed would allow it to more effectively leverage its assets, inject new capital into the foundry side of the business, and make it more competitive vis-à-vis Chipzilla. Today, that dream is dead. AMD announced today that it would give up its 8.8% equity stake in the company. When AMD created GlobalFoundries in 2009, the company held a 34.2% share in the foundry. The main thing that AMD gains from this deal is manufacturing flexibility. Previously, Sunnyvale had agreed to manufacture 28nm APUs solely with GlobalFoundries. This new agreement voids that arrangement, freeing AMD to work with TSMC and other foundries.. It's not an agreement that came cheap, though — not only is AMD giving up its 8.8% equity share of GF, it's agreed to pay the manufacturer some $425 million by the end of Q1 2013. AMD will take a $703M charge against the transaction. It's unclear how this move will pan out. We know AMD killed Krishna/Wichita due to manufacturing problems, Llano limped along for most of 2011, and GF's problems at 32nm impacted AMD's ability to sell 45nm chips into the channel. From a macroeconomic perspective, AMD is simply transferring its business to a foundry partner that's more able to meet its needs. One could argue that AMD's decision to get out of the foundry business is a logical extension of new-CEO Rory Read's plan to de-emphasize cutting-edge silicon in favor of SoCs. Time will tell."
Re:AMD is dead (Score:5, Interesting)
Pack it up. AMD is dead.
Tell that do my 4x12 6100s.
Intel is faster per thread on the top end. But, bu the time you have 32/48/64 you're obviously running a parallelizable workload. AMD gives way more bang for the buck.
Speakingof which, they just bought SeaMicro. Apparently they can "cram" 512 atoms or 1024 cores into 10u drawing about 5.5kW.
Well, 5.5Kw will get you 6 1U 4x64 6200 servers, which has 1536 rather faster cores and fits in only 6U, with the same power draw.
I'll bet the SeaMicro box is much, much more expensive too.
Not sure how the SeaMicro numbers add up, TBH.
Re:AMD is dead (Score:5, Interesting)
AMD is dead...? (Score:2, Interesting)
AMD has been here before. More than once. And somehow has managed to escape oblivion each time.
AMD is still stuck in the manufacturing mentality of the 1980's where "do whatever it takes no matter what" was the mantra. Their former SDC, aka Fab 23, was full of these people, mostly from MMI, who tended to reject new ways of doing things and using better equipment and practices. They wasted millions on equipment that would be installed, qualified and then promptly destroyed by bad, primitive, caveman maintenance practices which also had the effect of ruining processes, resulting in drastically low yields and contaminated product that failed early and (not too) often on their customers. They fell short of production goals time and time again. They stopped telling their own employees what the cumulative yield was so that no one would know how bad things really were.
Intel improved their practices and processes from the start and retrained all their "cavemen" and those who could/would not be trained and continued to use clubs to maintain equipment were sacked. Intel, unlike AMD is focused more on quality rather than quantity, which improves yields which, by some magic that AMD has yet to grasp, increases quantity.
There is nothing here that isn't known within the industry. It's just not general public knowledge.
AMD has some excellent products but their manufacturing hasn't been so excellent. If they aren't willing to get rid of the cavemen and strictly enforce quality, then this may be their final act.
Re:Mixed news (Score:5, Interesting)
AMD isn't giving up design, just the foundary. And in future, Intel must compete with TSMC and friends in process technology, as opposed to their time tested strategy of cutting off AMD's air supply. Makes it more of a game now don't you think?
Step 2 of How to kill AMD in 7 steps (Score:2, Interesting)
Back when they first announced their foundry spin off, I posted The Following: [slashdot.org]
1) AMD Spins off Fabs. ...
2) Intel/VIA/TMSC/IBM buys AMD Fabs.
3) Intel/VIA/TMSC/IBM Fabs charges huge price to manufacture AMD CPU's.
4) AMD CPU Prices skyrocket. Unable to find a cheap reliable FAB, AMD loses price competitive edge.
5) AMD Stock tanks.
6)
7) LOSS.
We are now currently at Step 2. Although I never would have known three years ago that Step 2 would turn out to be "Globalfoundries Buys AMD out of Fabs" but either way, here we are today.
Now, time to move on to Step 3...
Re:Mixed news (Score:4, Interesting)
When you control the design and the manufacture, you have intimate knowledge of both. You can better design for the manufacturing process, and alter the manufacturing process to suit the design. This just isn't possible to the same extent when you work through a foundry
True, but AMD has not opperated this way since they initially spun off Global Foundaries. Bobcat and Bulldozer were specifically designed to be portable between foundaries and not dependent on special process tweeks. AMD's recent experience with Global Foundaries was the worst of both worlds: limited control and poor execution. Since AMD doesn't have the money to re-enter the fab business, the only viable direction available was to cut the cord and become truly fabless. They might not get any better control but at least they should be able to find a foundary that can execute.