AMD Opens Israeli R&D Center, Hints At ARM Link

siliconbits writes "We've learnt that AMD will open a new research and development center in Israel in the Tel-Aviv area, one which will be built around Graphic Remedy, the small startup they purchased in September 2010 and which specialises in development tools for heterogeneous computing and 3D graphics. Although the chip company hasn't published any press releases yet, the news is a clear indication that AMD sees its future (and its survival) in a more fragmented market where x86 is no longer the dominating platform."

Comments

Oh well

[Tsingi]

I expected big things from AMD when they merged with ATI, for Linux at least, my hopes did not materialize.

Now they are associating with terrorists. Bugger.

Re:Oh well

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Does the "A" in AMD and ATI stand for "Apartheid"?

Re:Oh well

[Tsingi]

Does the "A" in AMD and ATI stand for "Apartheid"?

I guess it does now.

Re:Oh well

[Anonymous Coward]

What are you talking about? Tel Aviv isn't in the Gaza strip.

Re:Oh well

[cheeks5965]

I don't get it. Israel is generally considered a country in the middle east, not a part of South Africa from 20 years ago. The Oracle says:

Apartheid was a political system in South Africa, which was in use in the 20th century, mainly between the 1940s and the 1980s. In the system, the people of South Africa were divided by their race. Even though black people were the majority in the country, a small number of white people ruled them and held most political offices. There were laws that kept up the racial separation. The system of apartheid in South Africa was banned in 1994.

Re:Oh well

[Monchanger]

I don't get it.

It's just another bombastic claim Palestinian sympathizers use to garner support from naive liberals, anti-zionists and anti-semites. It's a stupid analogy, but that's all they have. Well, that and their terrorism, but here in the US we've finally started to frown on that.

Re:Oh well

[sconeu]

Tell you what. Let's look at a situation:

[HYPOTHETICAL]
Aztlan wingnuts decide to take back California. They set up in Tijuana and start shooting Katushya rockets into San Diego and Orange County.

What should the US.gov do?
[/HYPOTHETICAL]

Re:Oh well

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

There are so many half-truths, distortions and lies in what you hypothesise, that it is unpossible to formulate a refutation.

Re:Oh well

[omfgnosis]

s/South Africa/Israel/
s/white/Israeli Jews/
s/black/Palestinian/
s/the majority/roughly half the population/
s/small number/politically dominant quasi-racial class/
s/20th century/20th and 21st centuries/
s/1980s/present/
s/banned in 1994/not yet banned/

The term Apartheid is not employed by Israel, which apparently wants to enjoy the propaganda coup of "democracy" while employing much of the same institutional policies that South Africa employed under the Apartheid regime. But the comparison is mostly apt, which has been recognized by former South African Apartheid leaders and resisters alike. There are some areas where the comparison breaks down, but those areas aren't particularly flattering to Israel; the most obvious difference being that, while Apartheid South Africa depended on black labor and exploited it in much the same way the US depends on migrant labor, Israel has shed a great deal of its dependence on Palestinian labor, leaving the population not just imprisoned under the rule of another people, but almost totally stripped of any kind of economic existence or leverage with which to improve their conditions.

There are other, probably more apt, comparisons available, but they tend to be just as controversial among those who take Israel's claims to be a "democracy" and so forth at face value. The most obvious is to the countless precedents of (settler and imperial) colonialism, and here the comparisons don't break down at all... except in the minor areas that they differ among themselves. It's probably wiser, in the long run, to expose the colonialist system itself for what it is, and to put Apartheid, too, in that context. But the use of Apartheid as a frame of reference remains relevant, as the systems are incredibly similar.

Re:Oh well

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

How can you be a "democracy" when you deny full status to non-Jews?

BTW: There is no historical or archaeological validation for " a first temple" or a "David and Solomon" or any other fairy-tale that is used to justify this supposed "promised land". The whole Moses story is entirely un-validated through any reading of the historical record, either from Egypt or their contemporary states.

But the Mormons insist that the American Natives were dislocated tribes of Israel, to whom Jesus sent his message, after the resurrection.

So I guess people will swallow any kind of horse shit - instead of actually treating each other as loved creations by God.

Re:Oh well

[cheeks5965]

But South African apartheid applied to its own citizens. Israel probably doesn't consider the people of gaza / west bank to be israeli citizens. The people probably wouldn't consider it either!

So it's not like israel has jewish beaches and arab beaches. The comparison doesn't seem particularly apt to me.

Re:Oh well

[derGoldstein]

How can you be a "democracy" when you deny full status to non-Jews?

Ignorance is far too rampant for me to make a dent, but I'll try:
- Arab population in Israel: 1,271,000 (about 20% of the population)
- 84.9% of Israeli Arabs stated that Israel has a right to exist as an independent state
- 77% would rather live in Israel as Israeli citizens than in any other country in the world
There are 14 arab members of parliament in the Israeli Knesset (out of 120 members total)

Feel free to check the stats here. I'm Israeli and I work with arabs every day, in the tech sector. They send their children to Israeli schools, and vote for parliament like any other citizen. The only major difference is that they don't have to serve in the IDF unless they want to.

Re:Oh well

[omfgnosis]

South African apartheid didn't apply to "its own citizens", it applied to a white elite ruling over a (set of) black nation(s); it implemented "sovereignty" for the black South Africans under terms like "homelands" and "bantustans". And while the Palestinians of Gaza and the West Bank are not Israeli citizens, they are a population Israel has ruled over since 1967, and has effectively permanent sovereignty over. The whole of Palestine has been wholly Israel for 44 years, and given Israeli politics and US support, will continue to do so indefinitely. Israel can't have both rule over the Palestinians and independence from them.

And while Israel doesn't have "Jewish beaches and Arab beaches", it has "Israeli roads and Palestinian 'roads'", and a whole set of separate laws that apply differently to Jews than to Palestinians (whether Israeli citizens or not). The most obvious case is the fact that Palestinians are not permitted to emigrate to Israel (while Jews are, by law, guaranteed that right) and are excluded from buying most land held in public trust. And while building permits are ostensibly not segregated, denials of permits are almost exclusively given to Palestinians.

This is a very small sliver of a very long list.

Re:Oh well

[cheeks5965]

but haven't you heard of the holocaust? Jews need a homeland.

Re:Oh well

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Can an "Arab" marry a Jew?

Re:Oh well

[Alimony Pakhdan]

This is what happens when education budgets are cut.

Re:Oh well

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Is an "Arab" free to purchase and reside in any property, in any location of his choice?

Re:Oh well

[Alimony Pakhdan]

This is the correct responce to the ill informed claims of the folks who have nothing better to do than spread heate.

Re:Oh well

[captain_sweatpants]

The statistics you quote are probably biased by the fact that most arabs living in Israel would be afraid of answering those questions truthfully for fear of persecution. Also it shouldn't be surprising that muslims want to live in their holy cities. A religious state implies institutionalised prejudice. Israel is and always will be fundamentally flawed.

Re:Oh well

[jawahar]

More in http://www.middle-east-info.org/gateway.html

Re:Oh well

[omfgnosis]

Whoever moderated this "troll", assuming you know what "troll" means, I am impressed with your faith in the mental capacities of the people I'm apparently "trolling".

Re:Oh well

[omfgnosis]

Oh, I get it. Good job.

For what it's worth, since I've unwittingly done "cheeks'" propaganda job for them, I'll go ahead and address the Holocaust too.

Holocaust: happened.
Committed: not by Palestinians, who bear no responsibility to shoulder the burden of making wrongs right.
Homeland: probably a good idea, especially in the context of the Holocaust.
"Jewish state": not the same thing as a homeland.
"Jewish state" in Palestine: produced, inevitably, ethnic cleansing, dispossession, and the colonial relationship that will make more ethnic cleansing and dispossession a constant and ongoing inevitability.

The Holocaust is a good defense of a Jewish safe-haven; it's an awful defense of an ethno-religious settler-colonial state created to engage in conquest.

Re:Oh well

[Kilrah_il]

Yes, I personally know of several such cases. It's not common, but it's not illegal.

Re:Oh well

[Kilrah_il]

Legally? Yes. Of course, if an Arab would try to buy a house in the middle of an orthodox neighborhood, it will be frowned upon, but such will be the case if I, a Jewish person, will buy a house in the middle of an Arab village.

Re:Oh well

[Kilrah_il]

Israel is not a country where people are persecuted for speaking their mind. If you would just look a couple of weeks back, many Arab citizens protested around the country to remember the Nakba. Do most of the Jewish Israelis agree with them? No. Did anyone interfere with their right for peaceful assembly? Not in the least. In places where the assemblies became violent, only there did the police intervene.

Re:Oh well

[captain_sweatpants]

So they don't crush peaceful protests, that hardly makes them a shining example of democracy. I bet the police's definition of 'peaceful' and 'appropriate force' tends to change depending on who is protesting. If a Jewish state is not going to treat Jews and 'Non-Jews' differently then what is the point of it exactly?

Re:Oh well

[Kilrah_il]

The point of a Jewish state is that for the first time in modern history, the Jewish people will have a place they are not discriminated against. The Jewish state is not meant to be a place where we discriminate others. Granted, things are not perfect, and I agree that it is easier being Jewish in Israel than Arab, but you can just pick any one of Israel's neighbors to see places where the government treats strangers, women and sometimes even its own citizens with a rough hand.
It's always funny when every small slip-up by Israel is covered and shown as a proof to the inhumanity of the Jewish state, when most (if not all) of the Arab states practice human-rights violation on a daily, if not hourly, basis; and with much worse offences.

Re:Oh well

[captain_sweatpants]

The point of a Jewish state is that for the first time in modern history, the Jewish people will have a place they are not discriminated against.

That's just wrong. Jews can live quite happily in the US, UK, most of Europe, Canada, Australia, NZ, etc: places where everybody is protected equally. Also they could have created Israel somewhere else. Jews, Christians and Muslims all have equally valid claims to 'belonging' there.

The Jewish state is not meant to be a place where we discriminate others.

But that precisely what it must become! You cannot represent all groups equally when you promise to protect one of them above all.

Granted, things are not perfect, and I agree that it is easier being Jewish in Israel than Arab, but you can just pick any one of Israel's neighbors to see places where the government treats strangers, women and sometimes even its own citizens with a rough hand.

Sure by most standards Israel is better than most of it's neighbours, but that's not saying much. Countries run by dictators are a poor benchmark.

It's always funny when every small slip-up by Israel is covered and shown as a proof to the inhumanity of the Jewish state, when most (if not all) of the Arab states practice human-rights violation on a daily, if not hourly, basis; and with much worse offences.

As above. I'd argue Israeli's and Arabs aren't much different in their US versus THEM attitudes, though the Israeli's are a bit more sophisticated in how they go about it. There really is no reason for Israel to not join the rest of the civilised world and simply bestow equal rights for all. If the Jews are being discriminated against, the perpetrators get taken to court and/or go to jail. Jews are the majority, what do they have to fear?

It's backwards day

[GameboyRMH]

Now Israel will be providing ARMs to the US for a change!

Re:It's backwards day

[erroneus]

Okay, I was going to make some sort of reference to an ARMs race or like that but you beat me to it....

Re:It's backwards day

[cheeks5965]

zing!

Re:It's backwards day

[Anonymous Coward]

Yay more backdoors for the other part (the civilized peaceful part) of the world.

Yoshinoya bitches!

[Anonymous Coward]

This has nothing to do with this thread, but would you just listen to me for a little bit? See, I went to the local Yoshinoya today. Right. Yoshinoya. And the damn place was packed so full of people, I couldn't even find a seat. So I looked around a bit, and I found a sign that said "150 yen off". What the hell is wrong with you people? Are you idiots or something? Any other day you wouldn't even think of going to Yoshinoya, but if it's 150 yen off, you all flock in here? It's just 150 fucking yen! 150 yen! And you're bringing the kids too. Look at that, a family of four going to Yoshinoya. Con-fucking-gratulations. And now the guy's going, "All right! Daddy's going to order the extra-large!" Shit, I can't watch any more of this.

Yoshinoya should be fucking brutal. Two guys sit facing each other across a U-shaped table, and you never quite know if they'll suddenly just start a fight right there. It's stab-or-be-stabbed, and that's what so damn great about the place. Women and kids should stay the fuck away.

Well, I finally found a seat, but then the guy next to me goes, "I'll have a large bowl with extra gravy!". So now I'm pissed off again. Who the fuck orders extra gravy these days? Why are you looking so goddamn proud when you say that? I was gonna ask you, are you really going to fucking eat all that gravy? I wanted to fucking interrogate you. For about a fucking hour. You know what? I think you just wanted to say "extra gravy".

Now, take it from the Yoshinoya veteran. The latest thing among the Yoshinoya pros is this: Extra green onions. That's the ticket. A large bowl with extra onions, and egg. This is what someone who knows his shit orders. They put in more onions, and less meat. A large bowl with the raw egg, that's really fucking awesome. Now, you should know, if you keep ordering this, there's a risk employees might write you up. This really is a double-edged sword. I really can't recommend this for amateurs.

Yuck

[Anonymous Coward]

now you can't buy AMD either any more.

Re:Yuck

[Anonymous Coward]

You can always buy any of the Palestinian designed CPUs out there.

Re:Yuck

[Anonymous Coward]

You can always buy any of the Palestinian designed CPUs out there.

Thanks, but I'll pass. I've heard the Palestinian CPUs have a tendency to overheat and blow themselves up, typically damaging other hardware components around them.

Re:Yuck

[LighterShadeOfBlack]

So you're fine buying from tech companies with Chinese factories (ie. pretty much all of them) but an Israeli R&D lab is unacceptable? I don't see the distinction.

Don't kid youself. None of those silicon-holding boxes you own were knitted by unicorns from a child's laughter.

Re:Yuck

[h4rr4r]

Maybe if a person considers Collective Punishment worse than low wages and unsafe working conditions it make sense. The latter seems pretty bad, but the former is a war crime.

Personally it all sounds pretty bad, and the other sides in the Isaeli-Arab conflicts aren't any better. I wish we could do without all of them.

Re:Yuck

[blind biker]

Maybe I can put your mind to rest.

Re:Yuck

[Anonymous Coward]

iPads are actually knitted from children's laughter; the laughter is harvested in vast children farms on mainland China. Those children will never laugh again!

Re:Yuck

[h4rr4r]

Great the options are war crimes or war crimes.

Is there a reason these people are such assholes?
I have never said, "you know what lets go be total assholes to the neighbors." I have never though of stealing his house or his car.

Re:Yuck

[Anonymous Coward]

Factory gets blown up by IDF every week

Re:Yuck

[Anonymous Coward]

What company in the technology (semiconductors) market has no relationship with Israel? From 1998 I was told that Nortel Networks acquired many very fast cross-connects from them.

Probably most of the switching market has investments there and I'd say all the semiconductor companies have.

Israel research talent

[Anonymous Coward]

Israel has a huge technology sector. Intel, Microsoft, IBM, HP, Google, Freescale, CA, and SanDisk have Israeli R&D facilities. Hopefully this will help AMD become more competitive with recent Intel generations soon.

Re:Israel research talent

[derGoldstein]

I was looking over the comments to see if anyone was aware of this.

You're going to "shun" AMD products because they now have R&D facilities in Israel? If you avoided every product developed in Israel, you'd have almost nothing to "compute" with. It's not just semiconductor companies either -- Microsoft and Google have large setups in Israel as well. Facebook bought Snaptu a few months ago.

The Israeli economy is built around the tech sector.
Oh, and I'm Israeli, so don't forget to post some charming apartheid reply to this comment.

Re:Israel research talent

[hairyfeet]

And if this doesn't show the fix is in and serious money and or bribes is changing hands I don't know what does. I mean what other reason would a corp go "Hey, you know that place with suicide bombers and rockets raining down from the sky? Yeah lets build our new factory RIGHT THERE". The fact that otherwise sane companies are building in the middle of a warzone smells like some AIPAC/ US government meddling to me. I mean what moron builds in the middle of a place that has been pretty much in perpetual conflict for nearly 60 years?

Re:Israel research talent

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you ever been there? No? I guess that's why you're an expert on it now.

First, you imagine Israel as a post-apocalyptic wasteland with daily suicide bombings. Then you build a whole fantasy world based on that imagined reality. Then you call other people morons.

You should read this: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/irony

Re:Israel research talent

[Alimony Pakhdan]

Just to help you out with that ZOG theory, Macy's is having a 50% off sale on tin foil hats.

Israel has a lot more high tech than you expect

[Reverand Dave]

I worked in a semiconductor fab for a long time and we used AMAT SEM machines that were manufactured in israel. The direct factory reps were all israeli as well. A lot of people think of israel as this war-torn middle east wasteland but that's just not the case. It's a very wealthy and prosperous country, even if they are expanding and displacing the native populace. They are bringing a lot of non-oil money into the region.

Re:Israel has a lot more high tech than you expect

[Anonymous Coward]

If they are so wealthy, why are the US blowing billions every year up their arse?

Re:Israel has a lot more high tech than you expect

[Anonymous Coward]

A lot of us know that and know that they commit crimes against humanity on the pretext that their a war torn middle east wasteland.

Re:Israel has a lot more high tech than you expect

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think anyone thinks of Israel a Middle Eastern wasteland. They think of it as a self-perpetuating military enterprise. The high-tech industry in Israel has formed as an addendum to the that military industry. All those missiles and guidance systems need microchips and IT support you know.

Re:Israel has a lot more high tech than you expect

[dotancohen]

I worked in a semiconductor fab for a long time and we used AMAT SEM machines that were manufactured in israel. The direct factory reps were all israeli as well. A lot of people think of israel as this war-torn middle east wasteland but that's just not the case. It's a very wealthy and prosperous country, even if they are expanding and displacing the native populace. They are bringing a lot of non-oil money into the region.

Don't forget, the reason that the French tried to block Israel's acceptance to CERN was to protect French tenders. It was nothing political, only business.

Re:Israel has a lot more high tech than you expect

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you mean the fing A-rabs u asshole. typical slash dots making everything political and NOT technical because dumb asses come here

Re:Israel has a lot more high tech than you expect

[Nadaka]

Because the restoration of the Jewish state of Israel is a prerequisite for the biblical apocalypse. And propping up Israel plays into the fevered dreams of the omnicidal fundamentalist christian death cult that makes up a significant minority of the the American voting public.

Re:Israel has a lot more high tech than you expect

[Anonymous Coward]

No, he means the Israelis, and do some fucking research you asshole.

Re:Israel has a lot more high tech than you expect

[Anonymous Coward]

in global economics, business == politics

Re:Israel has a lot more high tech than you expect

[Reverand Dave]

Because the restoration of the Jewish state of Israel is a prerequisite for the biblical apocalypse. And propping up Israel plays into the fevered dreams of the omnicidal fundamentalist christian death cult that makes up a significant majority of the the American voting public.

There fixed that for you.

Re:Israel has a lot more high tech than you expect

[the linux geek]

US aid to Israel is mostly spent in the US. Think of it as indirect job-creation money, just like most of the defense budget.

Re:Israel has a lot more high tech than you expect

[blind biker]

It's not like they have any choice: Israel has neither natural resources nor appreciable arable land, apart from the one that was "stolen" from the desert and the marshlands. In such situation they had to rely on their most obvious resource - human creativity.

Re:Israel has a lot more high tech than you expect

[h4rr4r]

That does not create job anymore than breaking windows. If you really want most bang for your buck, just give the money directly to poor folks. They will spend it instantly.

Re:Israel has a lot more high tech than you expect

[Monchanger]

Nope. The real death cult crazies are a minority as Nadaka said. But they work together with the abortion crazies and the gay crazies and the evolution crazies and the global warming crazies and the gun crazies and so on and so on and so on. For any of these groups to point out how crazy another is would bring about their own downfall, so they play together nicely.

It's not an insignificant minority, but it's nowhere near a majority.

Re:Israel has a lot more high tech than you expect

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not like they have any choice: Israel has neither natural resources

They had an enormous natural gas find last year:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/31/world/middleeast/31leviathan.html

Re:Israel has a lot more high tech than you expect

[Reverand Dave]

At what point does one move from sleeping with the enemy to actually one of being them?

Re:Israel has a lot more high tech than you expect

[Monchanger]

You don't seem to understand Israel or the broken window fallacy.

Israel has real enemies who have been trying to invade them since independence. They will develop those arms, regardless of US support. This isn't wasteful spending, it's actually less wasteful than if they had to perform the R&D themselves, rather than purchase already-developed American goods. The US isn't encouraging Israel to buy stuff it wouldn't otherwise tax its citizens to obtain.

Argue about whether or not the US should support Israel if you must, but please try not to spread your ignorance.

Re:Israel has a lot more high tech than you expect

[Anonymous Coward]

French tenders? more like chicken tenders. Chicken tenders? more like surrender monkey tenders.

Re:Israel has a lot more high tech than you expect

[Monchanger]

I don't think any of those right-wing groups considers the others an enemy. They're driven by different agendas which don't necessarily conflict (thought they do conflict with their crazy counterparts on the left). On the contrary, they all contributed to the redefining of "liberal" as a bad word which they use to distract from their own radical message. And as the saying goes: "the enemy of my enemy...".

Jesus won't take away your guns (when he brings the world to a fiery end), but those PETA commie bastards will.

Re:Israel has a lot more high tech than you expect

[Anonymous Coward]

A lot of us

Translation- me and some of my ignorant friends...

know that and know that they commit crimes against humanity

read a crappy article on al-jazeera, some European news site (probably while surfing for porn), or the newsletter at our compound, which referred to one of the discredited reports blaming Israel for all the ills in the world, and being incapable of independent thought or critical thinking lapped up every bit of it...

on the pretext that their a war torn middle east wasteland.

because we don't think Israel should be able to defend themselves against suicide bombers and nearly incessant sniper/artillery/rocket fire on their civilian population, and any possible justifications will be misinterpreted, removed from their context, or ignored if the previous methods fail.

Hope that clears it up!

Re:Israel has a lot more high tech than you expect

[dave562]

You need to do some research about the realities of Israel's geopolitical situation.

http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20110530-israels-borders-and-national-security?utm_source=GWeekly&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=110531&utm_content=readmore&elq=6521bd09197a40ca98499beb42c07023

Israel can't develop its own arms and it NEEDS US support to maintain it's current geography and military plans.

Re:Israel has a lot more high tech than you expect

[tyrione]

I worked in a semiconductor fab for a long time and we used AMAT SEM machines that were manufactured in israel. The direct factory reps were all israeli as well. A lot of people think of israel as this war-torn middle east wasteland but that's just not the case. It's a very wealthy and prosperous country, even if they are expanding and displacing the native populace. They are bringing a lot of non-oil money into the region.

There wealth is directly tied to the US subsidies and US Corporations who expanded overseas to avoid a 35% tax owed back in the States.

Re:Israel has a lot more high tech than you expect

[Anonymous Coward]

Noone is talking about israels right to defense. We are talking about israelis right to occupy a people, deny their rights, imprison them arbitrarily, starve them, terrorize them, steal their water and land, deny them entry to their own country if they visit medical resources outside of occupied territories, the right to education, war crimes, crimes against humanity, illegal blockade and giant open air prisons where chocolate bars, eggs and pencils are denied entry as they can be used as "weapons" by the indigenous populations of palestine...

Why do israelis deny the palestinians (indigenous population of palestine) the right to self-defense while complaining all over the world when people are telling you to stop attacking them, stop occupying them, stop terrorizing them and make peace so that both people can live in peace?

Israelis are the aggressors as they are the occupiers, not the other way around. You have the right to self-defense within and on your borders, not on occupied territories! When you enter palestinian territories as occupiers they the palestinians have right to self-defense, the right to resist you, that is a human right, according to UN, GENEVA, and moral decent people. I live in Sweden, im a swede, if anyone tried to occupy Sweden, foreign troops entered Sweden, I would kick them out. Do you know what is written in our phonebooks? DIRECTIONS in case of foreign occupation. Do you know what our laws say?

There is no nation in the world that would disallow Israel to defend herself within INTERNATIONALLY RECOGNIZED BORDERS. Outside of those borders, any military action is AGGRESSION and anyone being aggressed against by israelis or anyone else for that matter has the right to DEFEND THEMSELVES.

I can't believe that israelis always think they are defending themselves, no matter if they are within israeli recognized borders or outside, they are always defending themselves, never the aggressors never the occupiers. Get over your mass psychosis and start see reality. Stop the damn occupation, and give other people same rights that you yourself have and scream about.
 

Re:Israel has a lot more high tech than you expect

[h4rr4r]

Israel would be buying that stuff anyway. The options are not buy from the USA or develop their own, they can't afford to develop their own. For the same reason the EU shares the Eurofighter.

You seem to not understand the broken window fallacy. This is not useful spending for us, it is exactly like breaking windows for jobs.

Re:Israel has a lot more high tech than you expect

[Anonymous Coward]

Yet more American welfare for Israel.
I'm sure there are smart people in Israel, but comon, everything Israeli tech is in fact American tech.
They can't even build a satisfactory service rifle for the IDF (everybody carries American M16/M4s).
Israel tries to sell Phalcon airborne radar. Oh sorry, American stopped it because it's chock full of American technology.
Does anybody own anything Israeli that's genuinely Israeli, and not basically American? I didn't think so.
AMAT SEM made in Israel? AMAT is basically an American company isn't it?
It's like saying Intel CPU made in Israel. American tech, not Israeli tech.
Plus every few years the FBI bags some Israeli spy feeding the promised land with American tech and know how.

Re:Israel has a lot more high tech than you expect

[Reverand Dave]

The fact remains that a lot of high tech manufacturing and R&D goes on in israel whether or not the tech originated there (which as you aptly pointed out it doesn't) the manufacturing money and R&D dollars get spent there.

Re:Israel has a lot more high tech than you expect

[Anonymous Coward]

One huge reason is that it was part of the deal when Israel gave the Egyptians the Sinai as part of the "peace" agreement. Unfortunately for Israel, they had discovered tons of oil and gas and had to leave it for the interests of a joke of a peace. The Egyptians say they want to break the peace treaty asap. Anyway, part of the deal was that the US would protect Israel and provide financial and military aid given Israel was losing financial assets and some serious strategic depth. In hindsight, this is helped the US strong-arm Israel, while Israel in many ways hasn't benefiting that much from the situation.

Aid to Israel is less than 1% of its GDP. People who whine about Israel and US aid should study history first and actually go to the place, learn the language, meet people, etc. before they mouth off. FYI, Israel gives in total much more to Israel's enemies. Israel has one of the most advanced armies in the world, even without US tech. It also gives a lot of its tech back to the US. Frankly, Israel is better off without the US money at this point. It's really only the US threat of entering a war that is any value, and so far the US has failed miserably trying to protect little Israel.

Re:Israel has a lot more high tech than you expect

[superwiz]

US "foreign aid" to Israel is less than 5% of Israel's govt budget (not of GDP, but of govt budget!!!). Most of it consists of contractual obligations which were established as a result of the peace agreement negotiated by Carter. It might take some searching, but you can find the English version of their budget online. I did this during one of these exchanges a few years back.

Re:Israel has a lot more high tech than you expect

[superwiz]

No more than NASA is breaking windows. Producing cutting edge equipment (military or even space exploration) provides incentives for cutting edge research which finds applications in civilian uses later on.

Re:Israel has a lot more high tech than you expect

[superwiz]

Israel has higher tax rates than the US.

Re:Israel has a lot more high tech than you expect

[superwiz]

There is a difference between spending to increase consumption and spending to increase expertise. Cutting edge military spending produces research which finds civilian uses later on.

Re:Israel has a lot more high tech than you expect

[NightFears]

Yeah right. Just like your mom's cooking is a byproduct of the need to feed US army. All those marines and pilots need to eat you know.

Re:Israel has a lot more high tech than you expect

[Monchanger]

The fallacy transcends your petty politics. It's about net economic loss masked as gain, not about who gains and who loses.

You are exactly like a lobotomized apricot.

Re:Israel has a lot more high tech than you expect

[Anonymous Coward]

That is a giant myopic self-serving load of unbelievably biased crap. You sound like one of those who believe the only land the Israelis deserve is below ground. Let's look at your arguments:
"occupy a people"- who are they occupying? The palestinians have their own government(s), as usual selected by violence. In Israel, where many 'palestinians' live comfortably and peacefully, there are palestinians elected to office- where else in the middle east can you find that (with a real election)? I'll check back for your answer.
"deny their rights"- The Israelis don't care wtf they do in the palestinian territories, as long as it doesn't involve shooting at Israel. If they shoot at Israel, Israel will shoot back, duh. There are terrible abuses taking place in the palestinian territories, but they're being done by Fatah and Hamas. Complain about that for once if you want to sound credible.
  "imprison them arbitrarily, starve them, terrorize them"- see above.
"steal their water"- wtf are you talking about? IIRC, fresh water flows into Israel from Syria or Jordan, and they basicly dump raw sewage and chemical waste just before it crosses the border. Is that ever mentioned, or is it not a problem because it's happening to Israel?
"and land"- If the palestinians would stop shelling civilian areas, stop trying to blow up school buses, and stop sending terrorists over to
murder children and pregnant women and then gloat about it (see the article about murdering children again, no seriously) then Israel wouldn't feel the need to have a buffer zone. If none of that happened and Israel took land then you would have a right to complain.
"deny them entry to their own country if they visit medical resources outside of occupied territories"- Reference please, sounds like BS unless they're on a terrorist list. Not that the 'medical resources' was probably a free clinic or hospital in Israel. The rest of the arguments in that paragraph are just crap in that they're thoroughly discredited or outright false.

One other point- you keep portraying Israel as the aggressor, and the poor palestinians as the ultimate victims. Do you know that part of the charter of Hamas is to destroy Israel, killing every Israeli man, woman, and child in the process? Admittedly Israel is not perfect, but how can you solely blame them for the continuing violence with a straight face? You say you would defend Sweden, and rightfully so. But if Norway were to start launching artillery into Sweden, and declared they wanted to murder all Swedes, would you just stand at the border and give them the finger? If Denmark decided they wanted Malmo and sent in terrorists to murder women and children who lived nearby, would you just sit there wishing they would stop? Think about how you would react, and how Israel has reacted to a very similar situation. Are you still going to be as critical?

Not necesarily not related to x86 CPU packages.

[Anonymous Coward]

  ".... development tools for heterogeneous computing and 3D graphics. .... the news is a clear indication that AMD sees its future (and its survival) in a more fragmented market where x86 is no longer the dominating platform."

    Hardly clear at all. These CPU + GPU chip packages that both Intel and AMD making the mainstream of the PC component offerings are ....... heterogeneous offerings. The GPU "instruction set" is not the same as the x86 one. Hence heterogeneous. What is true is that more workload is going to be split between the two in a more diverse set of approaches over time. (e.g., embarrassingly parallel code application fragments may run the "GPU" cores and the rest of the app on the classic x86 cores. Go back a couple of days and look at the Cray XK6 story. )

The days of an x86 core being the sole major element inside of a "CPU" package may be over. However, it is just going to get more "crowded" in the package. There will have to be something other than just a CPU inside the package that people common label as the CPU.

OpenCL, not ARM Architecture

[TheRaven64]

Both AMD and ARM are pushing OpenCL in their GPUs. AMD is betting heavily on GPGPU, ARM has always been interested in offloading work to DSPs and suchlike in SoCs. This is nothing to do with AMD designing ARM chips in a post-x86 future, it's about both AMD and ARM emphasising GPU power over CPU power. AMD, because their GPUs are much faster than Intel's, and ARM because Atom (which loses quite badly on performance per Watt already) has no advantage over an ARM core in terms of raw performance if anything CPU-intensive is being offloaded to the GPU.

Way to go AMD

[Anonymous Coward]

Settup up shop in a racist country that supports apartheid.

Ah.

[slasho81]

This explains the recruiting frenzy that Intel Israel has been in for last few weeks. They're drying up the employee market.

Fuck that

[Blaskowicz]

the lack of AMD factories and sites in Israel was one reason to buy AMD CPUs over Intel ones. now I hope that VIA can ramp up production, their Nano X2 is a close equivalent to AMD bobcat fusion, and they have a X4 as well.

Did we forget what happened to Iraq already? Israeli leaders play from the same textbook as the PNAC criminals who destroyed, piilaged and tortured that country. Netanyahu was councelled by Richard Perle many years ago, and his atrocious speeches feel like they are from Dick Cheney.

This isn't about antisemitism, or even terrorism. Israel is controlled by global ennemies of humanity, just like the US congress, german or french government, WTO, IMF, what have you, or mega banking corporations. You want democracy, freedom, human rights? they can only gained by getting rid of those criminals.

Re:Fuck that

[dskoll]

Israel is controlled by global ennemies of humanity, just like the US congress, german or french government

Oops. I hope your Tin Foil Hat was not made in Israel... otherwise, you're doomed.....

Re:Fuck that

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed!

Re:Fuck that

[Blaskowicz]

no tinfoilhatry needed, all the stuff that happens overtly is enough. when Sarkozy dined on his election's eve with billionnaires and major elites, then went on yachting vacations and visited W. Bush's ranch, he was clearly stating his allegieances. When lots of neocons draw up documents and publish them for all to see, stating their goal is complete military domination in every domain, and that they reserve the right to attack any country, that's right in the open. When Obama claims the power to assassinate any individual in any part of the world without due process, that right in the open. and so on.

Re:Fuck that

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you really think a half-ass boycott is going to end the Siege of Gaza?

Saying they're run by criminals so we should boycott them is like saying that we should freeze the Palestinian Authority's accounts because they elected Hamas. Collective punishment is a delicate issue.

This move by AMD is nothing other than an attempt to take advantage of the high levels of education in Israel (which, as has been commented on upthread, is a result of American aid and German reparations).

Intel Xeon

[dave562]

I have always said that it is all about Intel Xeon processors in commodity servers and that AMD was a passing fad. It looks like AMD finally agreed and has implicitly conceded the market to Intel.

i'm ok with it

[nonicknameavailable]

as long as they don't have a factory on occupied land

Re:i'm ok with it

[Anonymous Coward]

Than you should probably have issues with AMD, Intel, Microsoft, and a whole range of other enterprises having factories on occupied land stolen from Native Americans, French, Mexicans, etc. In fact you should probably be concerned about your house being built on the occupied land. Be careful with them glass houses, dude. You are not at all blameless to have the right to preach.

Can someone tell me why Israel is attractive...

[Anonymous Coward]

Can someone tell me why Israel is so attractive for fabs? Intel are big there too, aren't they.