Following the big announcement AMD made today, the company has appointed Bruce Claflin as Chairman of its Board of Directors. Mr. Claflin replaces Hector Ruiz, who retired from AMD's Board in conjunction with assuming the position of Chairman of the Board of "The Foundry Company". Mr. Claflin has been a member of AMD's Board of Directors since August, 2003. The AMD Board also appointed Waleed Al Mokarrab to the Board. Mr. Al Mokarrab is chief operating officer of Mubadala Development Company. Dirk Meyer continues in his role as president and chief executive officer (CEO) of the AMD Board of Directors.
"Bruce Claflin brings a wealth of business experience that applies directly to the challenges and opportunities relevant to our company," said Meyer. "We are also honored to welcome Waleed Al Mokarrab to the Board. His experience in business development across a broad range of industries will be an invaluable asset to AMD."

AMD today announced it has closed its Asset Smart strategic transaction with the Advanced Technology Investment Company (ATIC) and Mubadala Development Company of Abu Dhabi, setting the stage for the formal launch of the world's only U.S.-headquartered semiconductor foundry, temporarily called "The Foundry Company." The Foundry Company is expected to formally launch and disclose its new name and visual identity later this week.
AMD received $700 million from ATIC for a portion of its ownership interests in The Foundry Company, The Foundry Company assumed responsibility for the repayment of approximately $1.1 billion of associated AMD debt, and Mubadala paid AMD approximately $125 million1 for 58 million newly issued AMD shares and warrants for 35 million additional shares.

After spinning off its manufacturing division to The Foundry Co., AMD is left with all the engineering resources it needs to make processors. Contradicting older roadmap slides by the company predicting it would start selling 32 nm processors in 2011, Dirk Meyer, CEO of AMD in an interview with Information Week said that the company is on-track to ship smaller, more powerful processors built on the 32 nm manufacturing process by 2010.

The new manufacturing process would allow the chip maker to step up transistor counts to add more features and computational power. Tomorrow, on March 2, the AMD is expected to close the deal with Advanced Technology Investment Company (ATIC) of Abu Dhabi to form The Foundry Company (TFC). This would render AMD fabless. The company will then, like other fabless market heavyweights such as NVIDIA and VIA, will focus on designing processors, while TFC, its largest foundry partner will manufacture the processors. Currently AMD is tied up with foundry companies such as TSMC and UMC for manufacturing products of its Graphics Products Group, products such as GPUs and chipset.

AMD will be an year behind larger market rival Intel in selling processors built on the 32 nm technology. Intel plans to roll out 32 nm processors by Q4 2009. AMD's designs will be ready by mid-2010, following which volume production of its 32 nm chips will commence by Q4 2010.

After a successful shareholder approval AMD received for spinning-off its manufacturing division to form The Foundry Company (TFC) with a majority stake holding by Advanced Technology Investment Company (ATIC), top-brass of the Fab subsidiary in Dresden, German saw a power-shift. Long-standing general manager Hans Deppe left the company, to be succeeded by Jim Doran.

Doran's experience with the subsidiary covering Fab 36 (65 nm SOI capable) and Fab 38 (45 nm SOI capable) includes being its general manager in the past, which made with a contender to the post. The Dresden facilities will officially come under TFC from March 2. While as part of AMD the facilities were dedicated to manufacturing AMD microprocessor parts, under TFC, not only will they serve as foundry-partner for AMD, but also accept designs from other companies seeking manufacture on the facilities TFC offers.

AMD today announced that its stockholders approved a proposal to issue common stock and warrants to an affiliate of Mubadala Development Company PJSC, paving the way for AMD and the Advanced Technology Investment Company of Abu Dhabi to create "The Foundry Company".
With the stockholder approval received today, all closing conditions for the creation of "The Foundry Company" manufacturing joint venture have been met, and the transaction is expected to close by March 2, 2009.
AMD stockholders approved a proposal to issue 58 million shares of the company's common stock and warrants to purchase 35 million shares of its common stock and 35 million shares of the company's common stock upon exercise of those warrants to an affiliate of the Mubadala Development Company PJSC, on the terms described in the proxy statement related to the Special Meeting of Stockholders that was held today in Austin, Texas.

Silicon giant Intel flexed its IPR muscle by reportedly calling rival AMD to discussions on possible violations of past license agreements. AMD and Intel share license agreements dating back to 1976, which eventually transformed into the agreement of letting AMD use Intel's x86 micro-architecture in making its own products. Later in 2001, the two companies met again to share x86-related technologies. Such agreements bind licensees of the x86 architecture to confining their technologies to themselves as the license is non-transferable.

The two companies are expected to meet to discuss on how the past two major events in the recent history of AMD: the acquisition of ATI Technologies, and the spin-off of the manufacturing division to The Foundry Company respect the terms of the agreements. Earlier, AMD stated that the ATI acquisition does not violate any of its cross-agreements with Intel, while the company sounds optimistic about getting The Foundry Company to existence smoothly through one of its big hurdles: a clean-chit from Intel, after having crossed bigger hurdles such as government approvals and support from the various countries it holds its facilities in.

The Foundry Company (TFC), AMD's manufacturing division spun-off along with investment from the Advanced Technology Investment Company (ATIC) had to go through a series of negotiations to acquire clearence from the investors and the governments under whom AMD operates, to get the new company operational. It is a complicated process since it involes a lot of foreign investment.

A major milestone for TFC is the clearence it got from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), a US Government body that studies the possible implications of foreign investment on national security. TFC will control all of AMD's manufacturing assets including upcoming facilities in the US. AMD officially becomes fab-less though TFC will have commitments towards serving AMD as its foundry partner. AMD will hold a 34.2% stake in TFC while 65.8% of it will be held by ATIC.

At the AMD Analyst Day event, AMD indicated in its presentations that The Foundry Company, a manufacturing company formed from the assets of AMD with the intestments of ATIC under the AssetSmart program, would in the future become an independent foundry company accepting foundry partnerships from companies apart from its one largest customer, AMD. The move would keep the newly formed company profitable and competitive with other Asian foundry companies.

In the same presentation, AMD also indicated that eventually it would assign manufacturing of its ATI Radeon GPUs and chipsets, to The Foundry Company (TFC). Currently GPUs and chipsets are being manufacuted by foundry companies such as TSMC and UMC in Taiwan. This move would send a significant chunk of manufacturing to TFC. Sources tell ATI Forum.de that at FAB38 Dresden, a major manufacturing facility, installations of the 40nm bulk manufacturing node is in full-swing (not to be confused with 45nm SOI, on which K10.5 processors are built). Also there are indications of the facility accepting orders for manufacturing chips on the new node from other fab-less companies, an attempt to bring in profitability right from the start.

The Empire State Development Corporation, New York's economic development authority has approved $1.2 billion in state incentives for a foundry fab plant in Malta, NY by the AMD (eventually The Foundry Company). The incentives are tied to a $4.6 billion fab plant that will make computer chips for semiconductor companies, employing an estimated 1,465 people once completed. The plant will be located in the Luther Forest Technology Campus about 10 miles north of Saratoga Springs.

The $1.2 billion incentive comprises of tax-breaks and cash to AMD, toward building the plant. The development authority's five-member board of directors met in Manhattan for the vote, which was unanimously in favor of it. A public hearing regarding the incentives will be held Dec. 10 at 1 p.m. at the Luther Forest site.