- Saturday, 28 November 2009
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We don't want a war in the Middle East, if we can avoid it - Dick Cheney
Arabian Micro Devices explains itself
AFTER NEWS OF an AMD split, the divided firm together with ATIC (the Advanced Technology Investment Company of Abu Dhabi), announced a new semiconductor manufacturing firm dubbed “The Foundry Company”.
Mubadala Development Company – whose sole shareholder is the Government of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi – also announced it would be increasing its current investment in AMD to 19.3 per cent from the 8.1 per cent it already owns.
AMD will, as predicted, be going fabless, and passing its manufacturing facilities off to The Foundry Company, including its two Dresden Fabs and plans for a new Fab in upstate New York.
ATIC, which is basically the investment arm of the Abu Dhabi government, says it will initially invest $2.1 billion in the Foundry Company, $1.4 billion directly and the rest via AMD to buy shares in the new entity. The Foundry Company will then take on about $1.2 billion of AMD’s current debt.
To start out, AMD will own 44.4 per cent of The Foundry Company’s fully-converted common stock and ATIC will own 55.6 per cent.
As for current fabs, AMD’s 300mm wafer manufacturing Dresden plant, Fab 36, will move to The Foundry Company, whilst the former 200mm facility, Fab 30, will become Fab 38, a 300mm facility, to be ramped for production in 2009.
About 2,800 engineers, technicians and specialists are currently employed in Dresden. These will initially make up the majority of the fledgling Foundry Company, which will start off with some 3000 souls.
AMD will also pass on its plans for Fab 4X, in Upstate New York, to The Foundry Company. If the deal goes through, the new fab will purportedly create 1,465 new jobs at the facility and generate an additional 5,050 jobs in the region, when the fab is up and running.
Hector Ruiz, giving up his role as AMD’s executive chairman and chairman of the board to become chairman of The Foundry Company, noted that The Foundry Company’s presence in Upstate New York alongside IBM would “cement the region’s position as one of the world’s premier centers of nanotechnology development.”
ATIC reckons it can also commit to at least another $3.6 billion in additional equity funding, and go up to $6 Billion over the course of five years for expanding chip making capacity beyond Dresden and New York.
In a press phone call, Doug Grose, giving up his job as AMD’s senior Veep of manufacturing operations to become CEO of The Foundry Company, said the firm would “take steps to diversify our geographic capacity footprint”. He noted, “Once we complete the Dresden expansion and build Upstate New York and if commercially justified, we will consider the creation of a research and manufacturing facility in Abu Dhabi”.
Dirk Meyer, president and CEO of AMD, also noted that the Foundry Company would be joining the IBM technology alliance for both silicon-on-insulator (SOI) and bulk silicon through the 22nm generation.
With The Foundry Company taking on about $1.2 billion of AMD debt, ATIC’s $700 million payout for ownership interests in The Foundry Company and Mubadala’s $314 million to AMD for 58 million newly issued AMD shares and warrants for 30 million more shares, AMD have managed to shore up a fair bit financially out of today’s events.
Mubadala, whose Chairman is his Highneess Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahya and whose CEO is his Excellency Khaldoun Khalifa Ahmad al Mubarak, seemed pleased with the deal. “This is a smart investment and great business”, noted Khaldoun al Mubarak, who noted it was “a strong vote of confidence in AMD’s Asset Smart business strategy”. Mubadala’s investment means it will have the right to appoint someone to AMD’s board of directors.
Meyer, president and chief executive officer of AMD gushed “With The Foundry Company, AMD has developed an innovative way to focus our efforts on design while maintaining access to the leading-edge manufacturing technologies that our business needs without the required capital-intensive investments of semiconductor manufacturing.”
The Foundry Company’s main headquarters will be in Silicon Valley, while its R&D and manufacturing teams will be based in New York, Dresden, and Austin.
An AMD spokesbunny, told the INQ: “This is the right move for AMD at the right time. AMD gains a manufacturing partner in The Foundry Company and a world-class investment partner in Mubadala, enabling it to provide access to leading-edge manufacturing without intensive capital expenditures”.
The deal is expected to go through by the beginning of 2009, if approved by regulators. µ
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...looks like a Thunderbird.
Sylvie:

The NY state government MAY try to renegotiate the terms of their 1.2B$ aid package now that AMD has lined up foreign investment and is no longer in dire straits. Also, the flow of tax revenues from Wall Street is diminishing, so there are serious deficits facing the state government.

http://timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=727128

If the Inq editorial or an Inq reader has a hotline to his Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahya, then perhaps you could point his highness to this article:

"Lets put an effort to help John.W.Eaton of Octave Fame"
http://www.dsprelated.com/showmessage/103787/1.php

As you probably know, Octave is all about digital signal processing, and IMHO that will be even more important for AMD in the future than it already is. One day we hopefully overcome the x86 design limitations.

Note: I am neither related to John W. Eaton nor do I know him personally.
Great, so now he's going to run their fabs into the ground just like he did AMD. He's not on the "WALL OF SHAME" for nothing on Jim Kramer's show...LOL.

FIRE HIM. Do your self a favor. This guy is useless.

Hope this all works out for AMD in a hurry, I fear Nvidia will be all over the next set of cards, and we already know Intel will continue to lead for the next year or more. 

I'm not sure where they are going to get pricing power in the next year or more. You have to have the top gear to charge higher prices. They've managed it for a bit with their current gpu lineup, but surely that just made Nvidia as Angry as A64 made Intel. NV has the money to invest in new product, while AMD has to do it with debt. You can't continue to do this for much longer and expect to put out the best products. Right now their only hope is a multi-billion settlement from Intel in their court case (highly likely, but when?). I hope they make it to that date.
i'd just hope amd (design) wouldn't end up like rise tech, centaur tech, cyrix and transmeta.
I remember when Stan Barton Lead Barton Core Team, as well as IDS. It was Augsburg or Mcalister front from Univ of Minnesota shepard labs. yet, in 1966 it seemed like future, being seen mostly by Soldiers about to be slaughtered, oneway to stay TS.

Now idea, Purple Haze core? Well Barton Core didn't actually lose Vietnam War, yet theres real delay in marketing to public. Its time of Need that make core design large step into future.

Stealing FishKills Brains is wild & nasty idea, What Would Scaley Say? Every Television Display needs small computer inside, add another outside box for MAX Games. 
Yet this is really story of what one two way cache crossbar can do to Giant. Maybe Tort Spain or entire Hispanic World.

Barcelouchu, Well stuff is today much better than k7, stan owns shopping mall & daughter, bless her Hot Soul, is still unwed. Leaving Ultee' thinking: Hummm, Sleeping with Camel Spit? Are Camels really made from Domestic & Imported Stuff. we'll See.
drashek
Arabian Micro Devices!!! HAHAHAHA!!!

OMG - you put the smile on me today!! you crazy Inq ppl...

HAHAHAHAHA!
This is not like a usual Sylvie Barrak piece?

Oh right, Israelis don't like Arabs.
... as they debug their new chips, will they be finding ...

Bugz in the ATIC?
Glad I don't have to suddenly work for arabs, while the remains of western society crumbles around us, to be completely honest.
Incidentally, that picture looks like a comutergenerated character doesn't it, weird.
"He [Doug Grose] noted, “Once we complete the Dresden expansion and build Upstate New York and if commercially justified, we will consider the creation of a research and manufacturing facility in Abu Dhabi”."

One Imagines that that is a decision to be taken by Mubadala. 

".. his Excellency Khaldoun Khalifa Ahmad al Mubarak, seemed pleased with the deal. “This is a smart investment and great business”,..." Now that sentence must be one of world's greatest understatements, literally on a par with "One small step for a man ......"


And yes, I do realise that I have misspoken the last quote, but there is a relevance and I claim ...artistic licence privilege. :-)

PS ..... I am somewhat disappointed in the "Getting too Araby for me" comments of Carl, 07 October 2008 and "Just me." ... W.-, 08 October 2008 ....... for they Smack of a Blinkered and Bigotted View, but of course, would defend his right of free speech to share them.
That's an odd remark to make about a normal article FAR, based on nothing observable in the article.
And may I note that the titles of the articles are not written by the authors of the article, in case that's your beef.
And as for your statement regarding regional preferences, I think it's more the other way around as to who doesn't like who.
I'm rather shocked at the level of anti-Arab racism going on here.

It's often said that Arabs are the new Jews - they seem to be the only ethnic group that it's still socially acceptable to be racist to.

Making these sorts of comments about Jewish or black people would result in widespread criticism.
I know my statement about not liking to work for arabs is in a sense non-PC, but it is how I'd think I'd feel, hence the 'frankly', and as long as I'm not advocating anything untoward directed at said arabs I think it's perfectly OK, it would be madness if you could not even speak the truth about your own feelings.
If you disapprove of such or deem them misguided is of course your own decision and judgement, and I thank amanfrommars for respecting my rights to express my feelings, which I'm not saying are anything more than feelings.
And I even specified it was painful because at the moment we see the western civilisation crumble and working for non-westerners might sort of drive that home even more somehow I imagine, or perhaps not :shrug:
In the hope not to start some madness and add fuel to a fire I would still like to point out that there are plenty of arabs that openly say some very racists/bigot things about westerners too, and I'm not JUST talking about the man-on-the-street either.
While everyone here goes on about being politically correct, and who doesn't like who, just remember a couple of things when your singing praises and defending those eastward.

Think about it when you pay $100 to fill up your car, then see how far your eastern love goes as you are raped for cash by a large cartel.

The only reason there is money eastward to do this is because everyone else who needs oil has payed for it.

Q: "How would you like to pay sir?"
A: "hmmm, through the nose?"

And western governments are just as bad as they rape their citizens for taxes based on oil use.