Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (abbreviated AMD; NYSE: AMD) is an American manufacturer of integrated circuits based in Sunnyvale, California. The company was founded in 1969 by a group of former executives from Fairchild Semiconductor, including Jerry Sanders, III, Ed Turney, John Carey, Sven Simonsen, Jack Gifford and three members from Gifford's team, Frank Botte, Jim Giles and Larry Stenger.
It is the world's second-largest supplier of x86 based processors, AMD is also the world's second largest supplier of graphics cards and GPUs after taking control over ATI in 2006. AMD also owns a 37% share of Spansion, a supplier of non-volatile flash memory.
AMD Live!
AMD LIVE! was originally the name of Advanced Micro Devices' initiative to gather the support of professional musicians and other media producers behind its hardware products. The primary focus of this initiative was the Opteron server- and workstation-class central processing unit.
AMD subsequently extended AMD LIVE! into a platform marketing initiative focusing the consumer electronics segment.
AMD LIVE! was first announced on January 4, 2006 officially through press release.
[edit] AMD Quad FX platform
[edit] Geode processors
In August 2003, AMD also purchased the Geode business (originally the Cyrix MediaGX) from National Semiconductor to augment its existing line of embedded x86 processor products. During the second quarter of 2004, it launched new low-power Geode NX processors based on the K7 Thoroughbred architecture with speeds of 667 MHz and 1 GHz (fanless), and 1.4 GHz (TDP 25W).
[edit] Pacifica/AMD-V
AMD's virtualization extension to the 64-bit x86 architecture is named AMD Virtualization (also known by the abbreviation AMD-V), and is sometimes referred to by the code name "Pacifica".
AMD processors using Socket AM2, Socket S1, and Socket F include AMD Virtualization support. AMD Virtualization is also supported by release two (x2xx series) of the Opteron processors.
[edit] Production and fabrication
| “ | Only real men have fabs. | ” |
| —Former AMD CEO Jerry Sanders, III, [4] | ||
AMD produces their own processors in wholly owned semiconductor Fabrication Plants, called "FABs."
AMD uses a "FAB x" naming convention for their production facilities, where "x" is the number of years that have passed between the founding of AMD and the date the FAB opened.
At their Fabrication facilities, AMD utilizes a system called Automated Precision Manufacturing (APM). APM is a collection of manufacturing technologies AMD has developed over their history (many of which AMD holds patents for), which are designed to enhance the microprocessor production process, primarily in terms of yield. Much of APM is related to removing the "human equation" from the manufacturing process by isolating in-process wafers in containers that are only exposed to clean room facilities. AMD claims that the technologies that combine to make APM are unique to the industry and make it the foremost semiconductor manufacturer in the world - a fact which is lent some credence by their current agreement with Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing based in Singapore. India's first Fab City, a silicon chip manufacturing facility, being setup with an investment of $3 billion by the AMD-SemIndia consortium
AMD currently has a production agreement with foundry Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing which allows Chartered access to AMD Automated Precision Manufacturing (APM) process technology, in exchange for which Chartered will act as extra production capacity for AMD.
AMD has planned expansions in their production capacity. In addition to the completion of Fab 36 in Dresden (300 mm 90 nm process SOI), AMD is planning to upgrade Fab 30 (adjacent to Fab 36) in Dresden from 200 mm 90nm process SOI to a 300 mm 65 nm process silicon on insulator|SOI facility and rename it Fab 38, and open a new facility at the Luther Park Technology Campus in Stillwater, New York (likely 300 mm 32 nm process SOI production) between years 2009 to 2010.
AMD Quad FX platform
[edit] Geode processors
In August 2003, AMD also purchased the Geode business (originally the Cyrix MediaGX) from National Semiconductor to augment its existing line of embedded x86 processor products. During the second quarter of 2004, it launched new low-power Geode NX processors based on the K7 Thoroughbred architecture with speeds of 667 MHz and 1 GHz (fanless), and 1.4 GHz (TDP 25W).
posted by FuDo at
5:18 AM
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