AMD wants ATI's friends to stay close

ATI worked closely with Taiwan Semiconductor and United Microelectronics, while AMD worked with rivals IBM and Chartered Semiconductor and has its own foundry facilities.

This has lead some industry experts to wonder if AMD-ATI would reduce its wafer start orders with Taiwan Semiconductor and United Microelectronics.

However AMD company president and Chief Operating Officer (COO) Dirk Meyer said in Shanghai that the AMD-ATI deal won't affect the status quo.

He said that production of ATI's graphics chips and IGPs will continue to be subcontracted to the two companies.

This is not too surprising as AMD's own foundry capacity can only just handle its own product development and the company has no additional space to build ATI's product lines.

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