[BRiT]

My guesses:

The company was sold... or, an announcement of a dozen or so class action lawsuits...

[ShaidarHaran]

Originally Posted by Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.

Anyone know what this is about? The implication is that AMD is about to pull a rabbit out of a hat and it's ass out of the fire.

Pffft, at this point anything short of an announcement of bankruptcy would be good news.

[MTd2]

AMD will announce a will line of 32nm chips to be released this christmas near the North Pole.


Hohoho

[AlphaWolf]

Originally Posted by MTd2

AMD will announce a will line of 32nm chips to be released this christmas near the North Pole.

You're close, its an OEM contract with Santa.

[INKster]

Originally Posted by Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.

Anyone know what this is about? The implication is that AMD is about to pull a rabbit out of a hat and it's ass out of the fire.

Depends on who's pulling what out of where.

[Geeforcer]

AMD decides that going back to K8 was not far enough, announces K6-IV?

[Arun]

I can't really see what this could be except an announcement by AMD that they're now in love with TSMC's 45nm node for CPUs. I don't see how that has anything to do with Barcelona though (Shangai maybe but that's another question!) - maybe they've got Kuma on TSMC's 55nm and thus lol-free capacity for Barcelona? That'd be a very surprising move though, and I'd be curious to see how high it could clock... Or this might actually be related to Fab38, but I question why distributors and SIs should be the first to know about this?

[MTd2]

AMD hires Mike Uhler as VP of Accelerated Computing

All that AMD wanted for Christmas was someone to lead its Accelerated Computing division and it seems that Santa made a relative miracle and delivered Mike Uhler. The former CTO (Chief Technology Officer) of MIPS has now been hired by the Barcelona buster and has made him sign up for the position of vice president of Accelerated Computing.

“We are excited to have Mike join AMD just as chip architectures, AMD software development and third-party development of related technologies are converging around our Accelerated Computing vision,” said Phil Hester, senior vice president and chief technology officer for AMD.

AMD’s Accelerated Computing research and development (R&D) programs are focused on speeding up certain tasks and improving a platform's performance-per-watt ratio by putting to good use discrete co-processors and on-chip accelerator cores.

Hopefully Uhler's vast experience will help AMD's division and contribute to getting the whole company on track and working well.


http://www.tcmagazine.com/comments.php?id=17193&catid=6

[MTd2]

AMD’s surprise is a new 2GB FireGL


http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?op...4637&Itemid=34

[MTd2]

Intel is hardcore 32 nm...
Ouch, ouch, damn for AMD.

http://www.x86watch.com/news/intel-s...mples-184.html

[INKster]

Let's not wipe the past clean like it never happened...

We don't launch without a production-worthy volume.

*Cough* Pentium III 1GHz *Cough*

[BRiT]

Originally Posted by MTd2

AMD hires Mike Uhler as VP of Accelerated Computing
ttp://www.tcmagazine.com/comments.php?id=17193&catid=6

Exactly what AMD needed, yet another obscenely-high paid executive putting more drain on their finances.

[hoho]

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/dis...t_Company.html

Advanced Micro Devices said that while its next-generation code-named Shanghai processor is scheduled to be unveiled in the second half of next year, the world’s second largest chipmaker still has not produced a single working sample of it. As a result, it now depends on luck whether the firm is on-track to release its 45nm chips not much later compared to Intel Corp.

“We have 45nm on the way. We will have initial samples also in January. I’m fairly confident that those puppies are going to boot,”

I was expecting them to have a few Shanghai samples done some time ago. Assuming it takes a year from samples to launch it seems as in 2008 we'll see as many 45nm CPUs from AMD as we saw 65nm in 2006. Also Intel demonstrated working Nehalem in September or a whole quarter before first Shanghai samples so it should launch first making it even tougher for Shanghai.

Of course if AMD keeps its usual practice of not using new tech for high-clocked CPUs then Shahghai won't be a threat anyway. I sure hope this won't drive prices sky-high.

[3dilettante]

The Barcelona-Shanghai transition is less than that of Penryn-Nehalem, though a time of initial sample to release of less than a year would probably be a record for AMD.

Neither IBM nor AMD have released much in the way of detail for the 45nm high-performance process, and that's the one AMD would be working from.

AMD in particular likes to gradually (glacially) shift from the start of a process to the final optimized version. The information is so sparse, there is no real data to go on to expect a significant improvement in circuit performance, and 65nm for AMD was already a step backwards in some respects.
AMD's lack of information is usually indicative of a lack of something good to report.
45nm may not be anything to write home about for high-performance x86, and the early AMD process will not implement a lot of performance features.

The real danger here, if Shanghai regresses with respect to clocks and is only slightly more performant per clock than Barcelona, is that Nehalem will basically lap the field.

If the rumored specs for Beckton are correct, Nehalem's upper tier will exist in an entirely different league than AMD's best efforts.

[ShaidarHaran]

Originally Posted by hoho

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/dis...t_Company.html

I was expecting them to have a few Shanghai samples done some time ago. Assuming it takes a year from samples to launch it seems as in 2008 we'll see as many 45nm CPUs from AMD as we saw 65nm in 2006. Also Intel demonstrated working Nehalem in September or a whole quarter before first Shanghai samples so it should launch first making it even tougher for Shanghai.

Of course if AMD keeps its usual practice of not using new tech for high-clocked CPUs then Shahghai won't be a threat anyway. I sure hope this won't drive prices sky-high.

Well if they stick to their roadmap Shanghai can't ship at the end of the year, or Montreal will slip into '09 at which point they may as well just declare bankruptcy.

[dizietsma]

Originally Posted by hoho

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/dis...t_Company.html

I was expecting them to have a few Shanghai samples done some time ago. Assuming it takes a year from samples to launch it seems as in 2008 we'll see as many 45nm CPUs from AMD as we saw 65nm in 2006. Also Intel demonstrated working Nehalem in September or a whole quarter before first Shanghai samples so it should launch first making it even tougher for Shanghai.

Of course if AMD keeps its usual practice of not using new tech for high-clocked CPUs then Shahghai won't be a threat anyway. I sure hope this won't drive prices sky-high.

So if we here about 45nm in Jan or Feb we know they are ok and if we do not hear about it in that period we can assume it did not boot. Goo of himto put this marker down for us.

[Geo]

http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-983...&subj=NewsBlog

Advanced Micro Devices announced Wednesday it expects in the fourth quarter to take a sizable write-down for the declining value of intangible assets related to its $5.4 billion acquisition of graphics chipmaker ATI Technologies.

AMD, in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing, said it doesn't yet know the exact size of the write-down but expects it to be "material", or in other words, substantial when it concludes its review.

The chipmaker said it's planning to write-off the value it assigned to the ATI acquisition that was above the actual value of ATI's assets, otherwise known as "goodwill" in accounting jargon. That's because AMD has since found the value of these intangible assets has declined since it recorded the ATI acquisition on its books last year.

Ouch.

[ShaidarHaran]

I think after all's said and done AMD will either be noted as the worst management failure in the history of the PC industry, or the best. Right now it's leaning towards the former.

[Arun]

My understanding of that is they're going to write-down the entire goodwill. The point in doing that, rather than just a part of it, is that afterwards they will no longer have ~$80M of amortization related to ATI every quarter. That means their apparent losses afterwards will seem smaller.

Now, let's look at this differently: why do this now specifically? If they were going to achieve break-even this quarter, like they said they would, they certainly wouldn't want to make things look worse now in favour of future financial results. To me, this implies AMD won't beat guidance or analyst estimates in Q4.

However, that doesn't mean they're going to be much lower than guidance/estimates either. Who knows at this point...

[INKster]

There's one small thing not quoted above, but it's one that i believe will leave future consumers even more apprehensive and future competitive levels uncertain:

Two other questions remain, however. What did AMD find in its review of ATI's businesses that has impaired the intangible value of the company it acquired? And how will Wall Street react when the company holds its analyst day Thursday?

Could this mean they are giving up for good in the high-end GPU business due to AMD's inability to spend enough for R&D in the field ?

[Razor1]

Nope they are just saying there aquisition costs were too high for what they got, excuses being made to investors thats all it is.

[Geo]

Originally Posted by Arun

My understanding of that is they're going to write-down the entire goodwill. The point in doing that, rather than just a part of it, is that afterwards they will no longer have ~$80M of amortization related to ATI every quarter. That means their apparent losses afterwards will seem smaller.

Well, I would support that, actually. Dead fish doesn't smell better by aging. Whatever it is, then get rid of it now.

I could turn it around tho too. It might be that by doing that they are hoping it puts them in position to be profitable in 1Q results.

[Arun]

Originally Posted by Razor1

Nope they are just saying there aquisition costs were too high for what they got, excuses being made to investors thats all it is.

If that was truly the case, they would write-off *part* of the goodwill. But it looks like they're getting rid of all of it.

But yeah, this *might* be good news for 1Q results too; hard to say for now, we'll see in due time, I guess.

[Geeforcer]

Originally Posted by Geo

http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-983...&subj=NewsBlog



Ouch.

Maybe they are as tired of having one "perfect storm" quarter after the other as their investors are.

[Razor1]

Originally Posted by Arun

If that was truly the case, they would write-off *part* of the goodwill. But it looks like they're getting rid of all of it.

But yeah, this *might* be good news for 1Q results too; hard to say for now, we'll see in due time, I guess.

Its odd why they would do it at this point though, because the ATi division is doing better from AMD's past quarter stand point, the write off will have less impact.