Nantong Fujitsu Microelectronics Co., Ltd. (NFME) is a Chinese company that packages and tests integrated circuits. Recently, AMD has been working with China to reach that large market, especially given their ongoing cash concerns. This time, AMD sold 85% of its stake in two locations, AMD Penang, Malaysia and AMD Suzhou, Jiangsu, China, to NFME and formed a joint venture with them, called TF-AMD Microelectronics Sdn Bhd.
I see two interesting aspects to this story.
First, AMD gets about $320 million USD in this transaction, after taxes and fees, and it also retains 15% of this venture. I am curious whether this will lead to a long-term source of income for AMD, even though the press release claims that this structure will be “cost neutral”. Either way, clearing a third of a billion dollars should help AMD to some extent. That equates to about two-to-three quarters of net-loss for the company, so it gives them about six-to-nine extra months of life on its own. That's not too bad if the transaction doesn't have any lasting consequences.
Second, NFME now has access to some interesting packaging and testing technologies. NFME's website claims that this allows them to handle dies up to 800mm2, substrates with up to 18 layers, and package sizes up to 75mm. These specifications sound like it pulls from their GPU experience, which could bring all of that effort and knowledge to completely different fields.
The press release states that 1,700 employees will be moved from AMD to this venture. They do not state whether any jobs are affected over and above this amount, though.
Long term income probably
Long term income probably not, but AMD will avoid paying 1700 salaries in the future, or at least 85% of those salaries will come out from other pockets. That’s probably a few millions saved every quarter.
Just another nail in the
Just another nail in the coffin of this fucking epic failure of a corporation. PATHETIC AS FUCK LOW ENERGY CUCKING #MAGA #AIDSSKRILLEX
Relax and enjoy your Nvidia
Relax and enjoy your Nvidia G210 DDR2 card.
It’s not a nail in AMD’s
It’s not a nail in AMD’s coffin! It’s them spinning off their chip packaging operation and saving money. In addition AMD’s partner will be able to offer chip packaging services to a wider market allowing for a better economy of scale for AMD and other users of the IP. AMD is still 15% vested in the partnership and will still be using the services while avoiding the capitol/other expenses that are unnecessary for AMD’s needs.
IBM did the same thing with its chip fabrication business, and IBM retained a lot of its very valuable chip fabrication IP in the process with its deal with GlobalFoundries and IBM sold/licensed IP some to GF! IBM, Samsung, and GlobalFuondries have been in a chip fab technology partnership/IP sharing foundation for some years now, so that 14nm Samsung fab process that GlobalFoundries is licensing was developed with help from IBM.
That HBM packaging technology is provided by other companies to both AMD and Nvidia, as well as the interposer supplies, as there are a few companies that provide the entire SOC/CPU/GPU/other processor markets with their services and IP for micro-bump interposer packaging and interposer assembly services! The same goes for the third party supplier market for IP/Machinery for chip lithography that is supplied to the entire CPU/SOC/GPU/Other markets by about 6 main third party suppliers worldwide!
That majority/all for some of the SOC/CPU/GPU/other fabrication market services will be supplied by the major, and a few minor chip fabrication companies, and most of the market will be fabless, as that is the best way to achieve better economies of scale across an entire market of companies. Intel is the odd man out in this regard and those Intel fabs are not going to be as fully utilized for Intel’s production costing Intel billions, it’s no wonder that Intel is seeking other customers for it’s chip fab services.
So the once wholly vertically integrated CPU/SOC businesses are becoming like the once wholly vertically integrated auto industry that now uses third party parts supplier businesses! And The CPU/SOC/GPU makers are using third party Fabs/Other IP services providers instead of having the in-house expense of maintaining the packaging/fab/other in-house costs related to being vertically integrated makers of SOC/CPU/GPU products. It’s all about economies of scale for chip fabrication/chip packaging/other third party suppliers of services being able to provide services across more than one maker, and spread the R&D and physical plant upkeep/running costs across an entire industry.
I doubt auto-makers licensed
I doubt auto-makers licensed their engine production to competitors… (i.e. x86 technology)
No not the designes/full and
No not the designes/full and transferable rights to the IP from any x86 licensee(the x86 license is a special case in the history of computing), same for specific engine designs, but the automakers do license/contract with the third party parts makers for supplies of parts to the automakers themselves and the aftermarket suppliers of engine replacment parts. IP licensing is a moneymaker for the AutoMakers/IP holders and the third party parts suppliers.
The automakers can contract with more than one supplier of parts for the same engine/IP designs by contract/IP licensing agreement and thus have a competative bidding process among potential suppliers for the contracts to supply the parts to the automaker and the automaker/IP holder(Engine/CPU/Other designs) can be assured by/of a second source supply of the very same parts supplies and not be behind the 8-ball and beholden to a single parts supplier. The parts suppliers never get the Full/Transferable License to the engine design, they only have permission to make the parts for the IP holder, and mayybe the third party parts aftermarket with the approval of the IP holder and at an agreed apon payment of royalities to the IP holder(Auutomaker who designed/engineered the engine)
This is why Intel’s and M$’s OS, parts arrangement is so antithetical to the market’s supply of CPU/OS parts to the PC/laptop OEMs, the ARM based market being a more healthy and competative market example for SOC parts to the mobile device makers/OEMs!
IBM at the start of what morphed into the PC market, forced Intel to cross-license the x86 16/32 bit ISA(the ISA only) with AMD/Others for the very reason of proper supply chain and second sourcing of parts for its IBM PC SKUs. IBM was not willing to have Intel, or any other maker/supplier in such a control of such a vital PC part as the CPU and let Intel get IBM between the devil and the deep blue sea for CPU part supply chain, like the Wintel dualopoly has had over the third party non IBM PC/laptop market that we have come to know.
That PC/Laptop market dominated by WinTel for these last 3 decades is a very un-natural/uncompetative exception to the normal healthy competative market for CPU/SOC/OS parts to the third party PC/laptop OEMs. The mobile market’s decentralized supply of ARM based parts has been very healthy for those OEMs owing to the ARM holdings licensed IP business model that only licenses to the OEM/SOC makers the ARM IP/ISA and some refrence designs, and allows the many ARM devices makers many competative sources of ARM based SOCs, and some OEMs even make their own designs that are engineered to run the ARMv8a ISA, they only license the ISA(ARVv8a/other ARM ISAs) from ARM holdings and make their own designs to run the ARMv8a ISA/other ARM ISAs!
You make confusion with
You make confusion with licensing and contracting to hide the fact that AMD shot its foot by licensing key technology (x86 or AMD64).
There’s a huge difference in supplying parts (even full vehicles with rebranding for joint-ventures) for automakers like engines and licensing designs for a chip designer. In the first case, your clients depend on your production as a supplier while in the latter case your clients can make their own parts without your contribution.
AMD has not yet confirmed to
AMD has not yet confirmed to be licensing the x86 64 bit ISA to its Chinese PARTNER, AMD does not hold the transferrable rights to the x86 16/32 bit ISA as Intel holds the rights to that. AMD is free to enter into a partnership, just as Intel has entered into a partnership with Chinese marker for some x86 based parts, while not actually transferring Intel’s x86 16/23 bit ISA IP FULL rights to Intel’s Chinese partner, and Intel as an x86 64 bit ISA license holder from AMDs x86 64 bit cross license can not transfer the x86 64 bit ISA to anyone. AMD already has similar arrangements with its console partners/semi-custom partners!
These are just partnerships with IP usage under non transferable arrangements, such that they do not violate any of the Intel/AMD x86 16/32 bit ISA and x86 64 bit cross license agreement that binds both Intel and AMD.
AMD is also and ARM Holdings top tier architectural licensee and AMD only licenses the ARMv8a ISA from ARM Holdings for AMD to create its custom ARMV8a ISA running K12 custom ARM SKUs scheduled to arrive in 2017!
AMD, Nvidia, and Google/Tyan/others, are free to take a power8/power9 license from OpenPower and create some APU/SOC/CPU designs of their own with the very powerful and very wide order superscalar CPU Power based ISA designs!
Do not underestimate the trans-formative power of the Licensed IP business model for the SOC/APU/CPU/GPU/other processor licensable IP/ISA markets in the future for server and PC/laptop SKUs in the future. The x86 ISA is not the only ISA in town anymore!
Lisa Su is pretty clear, AMD
Lisa Su is pretty clear, AMD is for sale! (as whole or in parts including designs)
http://www.fudzilla.com/news/processors/40555-amd-china-server-deal-can-be-x86
[FUD]zilla is your source, so
[FUD]zilla is your source, so there goes your argument, and AMD will be making plenty of Custom ARM(K12) based server SKUs(APUs/CPUs), and x86 server SKUs and AMD is not restricted from selling its own designs in the Chinese marketplace also. The x86 ISA be damned, when there are Power8/Power9 Power ISA options for Google(Power9’s and Nvidia GPU accelerators for Google’s server farms) and ARMV8a ISA running custom designs(Apple A7/A8/A9, and AMD K12, Samsung, Qqualcomm, etc.), as well as the ARM holdings Refrence design(A53/A57/A72) designes that run the ARMv8a ISA! Do not froget about the MIPS/PowerVR SKUs and licensed IP versions using MIPS and ARM ISAs! AMD should never again tie its fortunes to a single CPUs ISA, go get a power8/power9 license AMD, same to you Nvidia. Intel in the not to far future may be forced to license that part of its x86 16/32 bit IP to others along with AMD and it’s x86 ^$ bit ISA, the world will be on The ARM ISA for phones and IOT, while the licensed power8s/Power9s hit the server world and eat those x86 chip pimps at Intel’s server SKU lunch!
edit: ^$ bit
to: 64 bit, and
edit: ^$ bit
to: 64 bit, and fix the other spelling f-ups!
froget to forget,
Damn my fat digits!
What’s wrong with Fudzilla
What’s wrong with Fudzilla since the information is sourced from Seeking Alpha?
http://seekingalpha.com/article/3967192-advanced-micro-devices-amd-lisa-t-su-q1-2016-results-earnings-call-transcript?part=single
Where are your arguments? I can only read marketing sh!t from you.
Even if I have machines with AMD components, I’m not as blind as you look like with the propaganda/illusion spread in your comments…
How much have you lost from your AMD stocks? :o)
Goose egg on any Stock, and
Goose egg on any Stock, and that short seller’s dream of Seeking Alpha and the crap that they spew! Really it’s more than AMD’s x86, though that will come with AMD’s better graphics for the money spent. No it’s the licensed IP business model and the licensable ISAs like ARM/Mips/Power8 and power9, and the freeing of the CPU/SOC/APU supply chain from any one company’s clutches to be free of what that monopolistic Intel, and it’s market antics have meant for the PC/Laptop market for much too long.
AMD’s an ARM licensee as well as Nvidia, and both could do with some power8/power9 feathers in their caps to get into that market also and add their GPU IP/other IP to the mix, as Nvidia has already done for the power8/power9 licensed market licensed via OpenPower players. AMD needs to get some of its GPU accelerator IP integrated with some OpenPower power8/power9 licensed IP and AMD has the chops to do that also.
The truth behind Intel’s one trick x86 pony is not lost to anyone alive before IBM’s PC hit the market and gave the Wintel cabal the opportunity to do their worst in the marketplace, and begin a new gilded age of Standard Oil Trust type market manipulation to the PC technology revolution and the third party PC/laptop OEMs for three decades+!
The mobile market does not Need ATOM, and Intel’s ATOM is a failure in phones, the mobile market is not behind any one SOC supplier’s whims. With the licensed ARM ISA/IP other GPU licensed IP/other wireless IP the mobile market is very well totally free of any single source SOC supplies by licensing the ARM ISA/IP and doing for itself via many different suppliers of SOCs(custom and reference ARM), and APUs(custom k12 for AMD), and Apple spins up their own IP that uses/runs the ARMv8a ISA to keep Intel on the outside and more profits in Apple’s bank account, ditto for the entire ARM based market industry players. Innovation is rampant in that markets unhindered by monopolistic supply chain problems for both SOC and OS parts not provided by the WinTel Trust.
She believes that selling x86
She believes that selling x86 implementations as designs wouldn’t bother Intel but I wouldn’t be so sure…
From my POV it is like selling implementations of MPEG-4 as source code but in that case the buyer should still deal with patent holders to sell his products to end users.
It shouldn’t bother China if the goal is to get the x86 technology that couldn’t be imported by the US embargo on x86 technology for supercomputers.
For China, buying x86 designs is a mean to get the x86 technology without buying products but the US congress could rise taxes on chinese imports as a countermeasures to this ruse.
No that would violate the
No that would violate the current trade agreements, and your labor costs are too high so the Chinese/Vietnamese/others will be getting those jobs including some engineering jobs.
The x86 ISA is not all that, any more than any other ISA is all that for all things, the RISC designs(ARMV8a ISA) are great for phones and the RISC design power8/power9 SKUs already eat Xeon’s lunch in the server room. Google will be using Tyan mainboards for its power9 server SKUs replete with Nvidia Pascal/Volta GPU accelrators! x86 in not that great of and ISA, it’s just that Intel grabbed long and hard onto IBM’s coattails, just like that monopolist Bill G. did with M$’s OS, and got x86(not that great) ISA a large market domination share on the PC/laptop OEM market! The mobile Market OEM’s don’t need no stinking x86 ISA, or Intel’s ring through their noses!
Here is the solution:
* In
Here is the solution:
* In addition, the FTC settlement order will require Intel to:
• modify its intellectual property agreements with AMD, Nvidia, and Via so that those companies have more freedom to consider mergers or joint ventures with other companies, without the threat of being sued by Intel for patent infringement;
• offer to extend Via’s x86 licensing agreement for five years beyond the current agreement, which expires in 2013;
source: https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2010/08/ftc-settles-charges-anticompetitive-conduct-against-intel
source: https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/cases-proceedings/061-0247/intel-corporation-matter
P.S. ‘In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king’
The FTC is not in charge of
The FTC is not in charge of the US national security, so the US congress can vote anything for the sake of americans against the gouvernment of China.
P.S. ‘Better dead than red’ 😉
Exclusively for
Exclusively for pcper.com
Hello world.
Katherine Core x86 was introduced.
source: http://tech.sina.com.cn/h/2016-04-29/doc-ifxrtztc3053015.shtml
source: http://news.dahe.cn/2016/04-30/106795440.html
source: http://en.zhaoxin.com/site/introduction
Alea iacta est.
Still red propaganda… you
Still red propaganda… you should go back to China!
Sorry! I support the
Sorry! I support the competition throughout the world. These are liberal ideas. I survived the Velvet Revolution in 1989 so do not lecture me about red. I’ll go where I want to go because I fought it. Thank you.
‘The road to hell is paved
‘The road to hell is paved with good intentions’
Any spy would lie to save his cover…
Have you learned chinese with master Yoda? 😀
Your jobs are over there now
Your jobs are over there now you overpriced/overpaid Floid R. Turbo Numpty. And many Billions are made in the Chinese markets and will continue to be! You are welcome to go back to the farm, and please do, so as to not distroy the quality of life in the cities and towns in the post industral world. And if the Chinese ever think to attack their investments in the west then you are qulified to become the cannon fodder for that conflect, be sure to kill and be killed, because the investors in amalgamated body bags need a return on their investment! You are expendable and it’s most likely that your not being around will reduce the crime rates also!
Edit: Floid
to: Floyd
Enjoy
Edit: Floid
to: Floyd
Enjoy that ride back to the farm on that very same turnip wagon, hicks with no marketable skills go back to the sticks! That includes you too Joe Six-Pack!
Here is the solution:
* The
Here is the solution:
* The US congress extend the x86 embargo to any x86 implementation.
* US universities rise the fees of chinese students in CS.
* US universities limit subscriptions from chinese students in CS.
The professors would have to
The professors would have to close down their grad programs without sufficient QUALIFIED grad student candidates! Americans with their sports is everything/Reality Star mentality do not want to become educated in the sciences, ever wonder why most of the scientific inventions that won World War 2 where for the most part invented by immigrant scientists with much better educational training from their homelands. Even today its mostly the same immigrant scientists that come from places where education is not free, and who struggle to even get the proper books that US high school students never read and probably throw in the bottom of some locker, or outright destroy.
In US however, the government and industry funds some of the best grad school programs, and that funding attracts the mostly NON-American students that come over here and make the America that is very prosperous for the owners of the enterprises/others that get these grad students from around the world. There will never be any Tax that discourages the importation of brain power to America, as America is afflicted with a very large population that needs to be brought back to an agrarian existence, so let’s start a program to get Joe Numpties for brains back to the farm by tying any sorts of public assistance to enrollment in some agricultural training programs that move Joe and his six-pack back to the farm, government can even fund programs to move the Sports arenas out into non urban areas near the agricultural training facilities and create some land grant sorts of agricultural training facilities in that same manner as the land grant collages of old that every state has! There old Joe/whatever pack can be reintroduced to his natural abilities towards a more rural and productive existence, and out of the cities and towns where Joe/whatever pack drives the crime rates sky high!
P.S. The x86 ISA is no better that any other ISA for computation and the GPU puts the CPU to shame for number crunching, so all you Intel one trick pony x86 ISA fans you are nothing but CPU Peasants! GPUs with even more CPU types of functionality will totally supplant the CPU for many of the major computational tasks!
A CPU’s ISA is not what makes for computational ability it’s the underlying execution resources engineered into the CPU’s execution units that make for that ability. ISA’s are merely templates that direct the underlying execution/logical/other units! THE more powerful and more numerous the numbers of execution units/logical/other resources the more computations that can be done.
You missed something that
You missed something that makes a huge difference: americans are descending from european immigrants and not from asian fake students…
Really you must think that
Really you must think that the tribes of Europe where anywhere near the technological level of the Chinese civilization way back in the day! So let’s not go there with your obvious xenophobia! At least the Japanese elderly citizens are not terrorized by some uneducated types such as yourself and other idiots like the elderly are in America, a place with insufficient elderly/disabled elderly housing so the older American citizens can live without fear of being robbed/killed! What a wonderful place America truly is with bunches of unemployed Joe six-packs ruining the low income housing that the elderly have to occupy for years in fear before they get their chance on the long waiting list to get into the properly secured elder/elderly disabled housing!
You Joe six-packs are just like the average ISIS recruit, or the average Baathist party member on IRAQ, or the average Fascist or Nazi party member. Etc. Etc.
P.S. Communism was created
P.S. Communism was created and gestated in Europe, and spread form there and Communism is directly related to and is a consequence of unchecked capitalism, as is Fascism and Naziism the result of unchecked capitalism!
Methods need to be employed to keep the uneducated masses from ruining democracy, as Democracy has nothing to do with both Capitalism or Communism! Types like yourself need to be back on the farm and closely watched for any signs of being a threat to Democracy! On the farm you will be able to grow your own food, and make other products for barter, or to sale for cash. You will be mostly dollar poor but dirt rich, but you will not be in the urban areas destroying the quality of life for the more productive members of society!
The Jobs will always go where the labor rates are lowest, that is before ROBOTS are employed and the major cost of production becomes unrelated to labor costs. The factories will only return as automated factories once the costs of shipping supplants the costs of labor as the main cost of production/product price, and the factories will then be relocated closer to where their output is consumed.
^ bern victim identified .
^ bern victim identified .
Very good for AMD, they need
Very good for AMD, they need more money for next GPUs and CPUs future.
Move to China or be fired
Move to China or be fired that’s the new management trend with arab shareholders bankruptcies…
AMD should have died a long time ago but the former shareholders saved their pockets by selling it to arabs.
How people could expect oil kings to be wise investors while buying futile cars and towers to be venerated like Gods?
Actually europeans should
Actually europeans should have done something to save their pockets from oil kings (or OPEC) by buying AMD instead of wasting a lot of money in african wars… Infineon could be a good candidate to buy AMD stocks with maybe minorities shares for STMicroelectronic.
With AMD having only 9,739
With AMD having only 9,739 employees in 2015, AMD is losing 20% of its employees to a Chinese company that owns 85% of it. That also removes AMD’s capital assets there to the new “venture”. AMD is also licensing its IP to them as well. So for $320 million, AMD is “selling off” a good chunk of the company to China with possible royalties and more licensing fees.
Licensing its IP, for
Licensing its IP, for AMD/others is not the same as selling the IP(Transferring the ownership)! ARM holdings Licenses its IP, and the ARM holdings ARMv8a/other ARM ISAs/IP, as well as a few ARM holdings reference design ARM chips, to SOC makers/OEMs around the world. So AMD gets on 15% ownership in this joint venture, and AMD licenses some of its Interconnect IP/Other IP and gets a one time licensing fee, and future royalties without and direct finical risks to AMD. ARM holdings does the same, and Even IBM via its openpower foundation with others is licensing the power8s/power9s! Power9s that Google(OpenPower founding/member along with others and IBM) will be using in some of its server operations probably with Nvidia’s Pascal/Volta GPU accelerators.
What do you not understand about this business arrangement, or the licensed IP business model started in the computing industry by ARM holdings and others. AMD still retains the rights to its IP, same as ARM holdings, and IBM! It’s just that the entire market for computing technology is switching over to the licensed IP business model, and AMD is even producing its own custom macro-architecture(K12) to RUN that licensed by AMD from ARM holdings ARMv8a ISA. Maybe even Nvidia will get an OpenPower power8/9 license and begin making gaming servers based on its own designs. AMD could also get an OpenPower license and create some Power8/9 based APUs on an interposer for the server/other markets also. AMD has some very valuable GPU IP, as does Nvidia, why be only an Intel x86 ISA one trick Pony when there is so much more in the ISA/IP marketplace for all to license and mix with their own special GPU/Interconnect/other IP for all manner/markets of APUs/SOCs running many different CPU ISAs!
edit: without and
to: without
edit: without and
to: without any