AMD celebrates 10 years at Fab 30

GUITARIST HECTOR Ruiz hosted a knees-up at his fab German fab this morning to celebrate 10 years of chip making in Saxony.

Amongst the honoured guests at Fab 30, outside Dresden, was German Chancellor Dr. Angela Merkel and Guvnor of Saxony Georg Milbradt.

Hector was in a buoyant mood having yesterday hung out on stage with his new best mate Mikey Dell. That was on the other side of the Pond at an Oracle bash, and, having there demonstrated his love for Dell and its new Opteronic offerings Hector hopped aboard a plane to wing his way to Dresden.

Much of the fab is a building site at the moment as AMD prepares to pump out as many 300mm wafers as it can by the end of 2008 by which time the ten year old Fab 30 will be no more and Fab 38 will rise phoenix-like from its ashes.

Also on the same site is Fab 36 which also produces chips. The posh fab nestling in the verdant Saxon countryside is a bit labyrinthine, but luckily both Ruiz and Merkel had plenty of blokes in black suits to guide them to their podiums. The same can't be said of your luckless INQhack who sat patiently waiting for the promised press conference to start only later to learn that it had just taken place elsewhere in the labyrinth. Sheesh.

Still, we guess Hector said that AMD chips were the best thing since Harry Ramsden's, that the deal with Dell, inked in Mikey's back yard would shake up the industry, that Germany was a great place to make chips because everyone here is bright, blonde and speaks a smattering of English, and the days of Intel's monopoly are numbered. Welcome to the duopoly.

AMD says it employs some 3,000 folk at its fabs here and supports around a further 5000 jobs in allied industries. The Saxon government has chipped in a fair few Euros to help AMD build stuff here and AMD's continued presence in Dresden is important enough to Germany for the head of state to tip up for a few words and a couple of canapés.

Merkel and Ruiz endulged a bit of back-slapping about the state of this "German-American success story" based, it seems, on American know-how and German efficiency, before disappearing off into a sea of black suits and the secret press conference. Hrumph.