“The high-flying Advanced Micro Devices Inc. of 2006 has given way to a company in financial peril, saddled with debt and bleeding from a brutal price battle with its larger and suddenly resurgent Silicon Valley archrival, Intel Corp,” Jordan Robertson reports for The Associated Press.
Robertson reports, “AMD finds itself the subject of rumors of a possible takeover or private-equity cash infusion.”
AMD “shares have plunged more than 60 percent over the past year on fears about the company’s ability to continue gaining share without hurting profit margins,” Robertson reports.
Robertson reports, “Analysts are not optimistic about a quick turnaround for AMD… ‘Our view is that this will get worse before it gets better,’ said Christopher Caso, a senior analyst with Friedman Billings Ramsey. ‘This quarter’s performance is evidence that it did get worse.'”
“Intel pull[ed] ahead of AMD by at least a year in producing chips based on 65-nanometer and 45-nanometer technology, which shrinks chip circuitry to 65- and 45-billionths of a meter. The smaller scale allows more transistors to be crammed onto the same piece of silicon,” Robertson reports.
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “LinuxGuy and Mac Prodigal Son” for the heads up.]
Related articles:
Intel reinvents the transistor – January 28, 2007
Intel announces breakthrough ‘Penryn’ processor family; slated for production in second half 2007 – January 27, 2007
Intel processor breakthrough biggest chip advance in 40 years; coming before year end – January 27, 2007
Intel to announce processor breakthrough; new chips will run faster, consume less power – January 27, 2007
Intel pledges 80-core processor within five years – September 26, 2006
AMD will sell processors to Apple in future, CEO Ruiz says – September 21, 2006
AMD Opteron is DOA, significantly less powerful than Intel’s ‘Woodcrest’ Xeon – August 17, 2006
AMD to buy graphics chip maker ATI for $5.4 billion – July 24, 2006
Apple chose well: Anandtech – Intel Core 2 Duo ‘the fastest desktop processor we’ve ever tested’ – July 14, 2006
Report: Dell signs deal with AMD for millions of chips for full range of desktops, notebooks – June 26, 2006
Intel-based Macs running both Mac OS X and Windows will be good for Apple – June 10, 2005
Apple chose well: Intel poised to take massive lead across the board over AMD – June 07, 2006
Apple to use Intel microprocessors beginning in 2006, all Macs to be Intel-based by end of 2007 – June 06, 2005
And to think that Dell switched to AMD.
we need amd to be viable in this tech sector…
it’s only good for the consumer.
Thanks for the weekend posts!
ALL HAIL HIS STEVENESS.
Steve Jobs definitely knows what he’s doing, and he knew what Intel was doing. The doubters were wrong once again. But hopefully, AMD will get back on track and give Intel some serious competition. They are both good companies who have their ups and downs, just like all of us. We need them both.
Well the truth of the matter is… that Apple HAD to pick Intel because of the DRM schemes Intel created and Hollywood approved.
If Apple went with AMD they would have been playing catch up forever. Not to mention being always under supplied. Not good for expanding market share.
Apples war has never really been against processor families, sure it took advantage of the processor wars between IBM and Intel to sell more hardware. To those mass buyers who would strip off Mac OS and run Linux or something they brewed themselves.
Apple’s war is for the consumer computing market and against Windows. It always has been.
“Well the truth of the matter is… that Apple HAD to pick Intel because of the DRM schemes Intel created and Hollywood approved.”
Explain.
@ Qka: Dell didn’t switch to AMD.
I’m happy withit.
So I say
Time will inTel….
Apple + Intel was a match made in Armonk. Intel was left jilted by Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft for the game market who switched for G5-based processors (cell, in Sony’s case.) And IBM was suddenly less responsive to Apple’s processor design needs, what with these new players visiting it’s shiny chip squirting-waffle-stomping facilites. And Dell goes all AMD on Intel’s ass, with no one willing to create a wintel-clone of Apple’s Mac mini even though Intel prototyped the thing and was willing to show them how…. This is all documented history. ’nuff said.
I wish MDN would let comments get digged or dugged down. ‘Cause TowerTone’s was awful. But I’d still look anyhow…
Trusted computing.
It’s an intel chip. It’s inside . It sucks.
Look it up. It’s the real reason your new Mac’s are running intel.
MW=truth…..no joke
I should haved just said ‘dugg up or down’. Sorry about my interenet lingo stupidity.
P.S. MacDude…I mean, um, Wiseguy, glad to see you’re back!
Intel sucked AMD into a price war through the systematic use of secret rebates, special discounts, and threats to the PC manufacturers who were playing both sides against the middle because they were benefiting from the war.
The fact is AMD got started in the processor business in 1975 by stealing (reverse engineered) intellectual property belonging to Intel and then withstood a pounding in the courts and emerged victorious.
Ever since then, Intel has done everything it could, legal or otherwise, to destroy AMD and haven’t bothered to hide their deceit, an all to familiar pattern of the rich and powerful.
Now that AMD stands on the precipice of financial ruin it is relying on the courts once again to bail them out and unfortunately you can’t resuscitate someone who is already dead.
Hector Ruiz and Dirk Meyer are running AMD into the ground and I have no doubt that a five minute conversation would reveal their business philosophy is as shallow as the grave the PC industry is digging for them.
Imagine, spending billions for ATI at a time when you’re hemorrhaging money and whose acquisition won’t bear fruit for years to come. That’s what you call flying by the seat of your pants! Oh, the drama…
If anything, the PC industry has proven to be extremely forgiving, but Wall Street isn’t and even though they a slow on the uptake at times, they can be merciless when they smell blood. So AMD better wise up, stop looking for handouts and focus on the roll outs before they’re DOA.
My 2¢
What chip(s) do you have inside your machine? How are AMD chips exempt from “Trusted Computing”? How often are you taking your medication?
Not the old “Trusted Computing” canard again…. please.
Apple has been using these chips for what, a year now?
The Intel version of Mac OS uses absolutely NONE of the trusted computing technology in Intel chips.
Clearly, if the main reason for the switch to Intel was the TC, Apple would have started using it in the Intel Mac OS. They didn’t.
Therefore, ipso facto, it was not the main reason for Intel chips being used. I’m not saying Apple will never use it in any way, but clearly it isn’t a priority. So please stop repeating this tired diatribe, people.
@®-
Cool. Then people could Digg us together…nagger guy.
Yes………….please keep up the weekend posts !!!
Cheers !
I´m rooting for AMD because we need competition in the chip market.
“Yes………….please keep up the weekend posts !!!”
I second that !
G4Dualie: “The fact is AMD got started in the processor business in 1975 by stealing (reverse engineered) intellectual property belonging to Intel and then withstood a pounding in the courts and emerged victorious.”
You have a few facts out of place there, son…
Firstly, Reverse Engineering, when done legitimately, is perfectly legal, and <b>IS NOT STEALING</i>. That is, legally purchasing a commercially available product off the shelf and analysing it to determine how it works, is perfectly legal.
Secondly, AMD went into business in 1969, not 1975, and originally made logic chips.
In 1975, AMD did reverse engineer the Intel 8080, but Intel did not sue them, or at least not successfully, nor notably newsworthy if they did, as again, AMD did NOT steal anything.
It was in 1982, in order to get the contract with IBM for the chips in the IBM PC – with IBM’s requirement of two sources of chips – that intel signed an agreement with AMD to produce 8086 and 8088 chips. The agreement was extended a couple years later wherein AMD was also producing 80286 chips.
In 1986, Intel that broke the agreement and kept the details of the new 80386 chip secret. IBM needed the 80386 to remain competitive in the burgeoning clone market, so couldn’t just say “we won’t buy from Intel anymore.”
Meanwhile, AMD, not willing to just roll over and die, took advantage of the 80286 microcode that they had a licence to and manufactured their own chips in competition with Intel, and subsequently reverse engineered the 80386, and then the 80486, though they developed their own microcode for those chips, just as they had done for the 8080.
Of course, whilst all this was taking place, Intel and AMD were locked in a heated legal battle, which you correctly stated that ultimately, the courts, including the California State Supreme Court, sided with AMD.
Just for the record, and to be complete, subsequent chips, such as the K5, K6 Athlon, etc. were all completely in-house designed chips, not reverse engineered at all.
Maybe he was thinking of Cyrix-the company Steve really wanted to go with…
AMD, Market Cap: 7.88 Billion
AAPL, Total Debt: 0
AAPL, Total Cash: 11.87 Billion
Wouldn’t it be fun?!
MDN Magic Word: larger
“Apple’s gunning for something larger”
Fine by me Mr. Encyclopedia… aka appleman.
I never said AMD started as a company in 1975, I just stated they started in the processor business in 1975 and as far as RE goes whose to say what is legal and what isn’t?
You sure go to great lengths to keep things in historical perspective. It’s too bad you didn’t get beyond my second paragraph because as verbose as your stuff is, we could have waxed philosophical on the merits of AMDs performance all afternoon but now I’m tired and I’m gonna’ go kick the crap outta’ some mesican mercs in GRAW2.
AMD is poo. IBM is wee.