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AMD and Fujitsu Spin Off Static Memory Giant
prostoalex writes "AMD and Fujitsu will form a new memory company. While corporations typically form new spinoffs every time you turn around, this one is different, claims ZDNet, since it looks like AMD will be splitting into two companies, one dealing in the microprocessor market, another in memory."
Get your 512XP+ DDR DIMM. 384MB chips that are as good as the 512MB piece...
The Mothership
AFAIK Flash-AMD subsidizes currently a lot of AMD's processor business, so current part of AMD that makes Processors seems to be confident in it's future to take this step.
And remember that AMD is much-much more than Athlon/Hammer, they make lot's of different processors.
fucktard is a tenderhearted description
AMD is a big player in the CPU market, but there are a lot of companies doing memory chips, isn't there? So, why on earth are they doing it? I hope it's viable for them , because they can lose a lot of money if they're not careful.
iMHO.
"I used to have that really cool,funny sig
There are more indepth articles about this here and here. The latter article discussed the motivation for the move in a little more depth:
"This is only going to help AMD and Fujitsu become as stronger competitor and move up in market position," said Krewell. "They are in better shape to challenge Intel because they appear as one stronger brand, rather than as two lesser brands."
- Welcome the coming of the New World Odour
..they can just manufacture space heaters. I mean, the infasructure is already there so it comes naturally.
And what I feel is a better article.
AMD make flash. Nowhere in the article does it talk about Static RAM.
:-)
When talk exceeds the bounds of the talker's knowledge, there ought to be a segfault
How wonder what relationship this has with Siemens/Infinion. Siemens cooperates with Fujitsu and is very successful in the German market. And Infinion is a Siemens-spin-off that produces memory as well...
If you're referring to the heat generated by Athlons.. Intel overtook AMD recently and the P4 now radiates more heat, it just dissipates it better.
Learn from the mistakes of others. There isn't enough time to make them all yourself.
newer Athlon XPs put off more heat per area than the sun
;)
I didn't believe you so I actually tested it. And you're right! My Athlon 2600 XP box puts off WAYYY more heat than my Ultra 80!
My journal has hot
Once the division is complete, the blood bath that is their processor division will become even more evident. How long before the shareholders demand that AMD leave a business that is throwing away their money (and always will) and concentrate on a business that actually makes money.
While the processor industry will be poorer for it, there's no reason why the shareholders should have to foot the bill just so we have competition that lowers Intel's prices and makes their processors faster.
Well, I don't think AMD never had any experience with DRAM, and Fujitsu, though has, was never a big player (big ones are Micron, Samsung, and Infinion, Hynix is dying so they don't count anymore). (Slightly off-topic - in term of SRAM, SONY is a huge player - who would have thought they were a big semiconductor company as well as consumer electronics?)
Same time - few realize the tanglement between AMD and Fujitsu. They have been doing ventures together for a long time now - a few years back they put together a joint plant - it wasn't a great success as I remembered it, though
Did y'all know Fujitsu is *the* largest computer / IT stuff manufacture in Japan?
Lastly, AMD flash is going toward Mirror bit, while Intel is going toward multi-level storage. Honestly, intel version has more expandability (to a point - storing 1024 levels per cell is just impossible) - so we will see how that works out.
Just random stuff I had in mind when I read the article - thought people might find them useless but nontheless mildly interesting.
I personally wish them well, but I do wonder what would happen if they go into DRAM. They would either get slaughtered (lack of experience), or some DRAM manufactures would just go off and die (even more, for Hynix, or severely cripple, like NEC, Mitsubishi, etc who are small players in the DRAM area). DRAM market simply won't hold this many people (already seen so many consolidations as of the past).
My life in the land of the rising sun.
This is an optimistic interpretation of what's going on. The pessimistic interpretation is that they expect their processor unit to tank totally, and they don't want it to take down their flash memory works, so they're splitting it off. It's like the Enterprise-D separating the saucer section when the warp core in engineering is about to breech.
There are some points to clear up here.
Yes, AMD and Fujitsu have been in cahoots for a long time, but it was a really great venture rather than the poor one you hint at. They created FASL (Fujitsu-AMD Semiconductor Limited) which ships the lion's share of the world's flash. Several more fabs have been started as part of the FASL venture. Iw was, and is, a great success.
Intel has been in multi-level cells, but the practical limit on it is the four-level cell they have now. They have just recently gotten that to work reliably. AMD's Mirror Bit cell is new, and obviously has only a four-bit cell, but when combined with the mirroring and multi-level, you've got a 16-bit cell. Evil.
AMD will never, ever go into DRAM. It's a loser. Prices fluctuate way too much and you can't make much money at it. Their strength is in flash memory, and they know it.