The AMD Execution Thread [2007 - 2017]

[Alexko]

Well there is this section in the contract for change of control, and there is a whole section on what change of control is too.

So if the controlling interest doesn't change then its ok, if not then there will be a breach of contract and the same rules apply as Intel will retain the 64 bit license. That's the way I took that. And if there is a buy out there is a change in controlling interest. With Bankruptcy its different, if AMD can't fulfill its obligations with in a certain amount of time, then the contract is broken. At that point you can probably expect that to happen because of the cash at hand is going to be 0, and at this point companies will probably try to buy AMD out as well.

A change of control is fairly clearly defined, but as far as I can see it is nowhere defined as a breach of contract.

 

[Razor1]

5.2 c

Termination Upon Change of Control. Subject to the terms of, and as further set forth in, Sections 5.2(d) and 5.2(e), this Agreement shall automatically terminate as a whole upon the consummation of a Change of Control of either Party.

 

[Alexko]

Right, it's a cause for termination, but that's not the same thing as a breach.

 

[Razor1]

5.2 c points to 5.2 e and d,

This is 5.2 d

Effects of Termination

(i) In the event of any termination of this Agreement pursuant to Section 5.2(a), and subject to the provisions of Section 5.2(e), the rights and licenses granted to any terminated Licensed Party(ies), including without limitation the rights granted under Section 3.8(d), shall terminate as of the effective date of such termination, but the rights and licenses granted to the non-terminated Licensed Party(ies) (including without limitation the Terminating Party and all of its non-terminated Subsidiaries) shall survive such termination of this Agreement subject to the non-terminated Licensed Party’s(ies’) continued compliance with the terms and conditions of this Agreement.


(ii) In the event of any termination of this Agreement pursuant to Section 5.2(c), and subject to the provisions of Section 5.2(e), the rights and licenses granted to both Parties under this Agreement, including without limitation the rights granted under Section 3.8(d), shall terminate as of the effective date of such termination.

5.2 d points to 5.2 a which is

Termination by Notice for Breach. Subject to the terms of, and as further set forth in, Sections 5.2(d) and 5.2(e), and upon written notice to the other Party (as used in this Section 5.2(a), the “Terminated Party”), a Party may terminate this Agreement as a whole, or the rights and licenses of the Terminated Party and all of its Subsidiaries under this Agreement, or the rights and licenses of any materially breaching Subsidiary of the Terminating Party, in the event the Terminating Party or any of its Subsidiaries commits a material breach of this Agreement and does not correct such material breach within sixty (60) days after such Terminating Party’s receipt of written notice complaining thereof.

So it is a breach of contract.

 

[3dilettante]

I know that my parsing legalese on the Internet is with no legal background is folly, but my impression is that the overall section covers termination, and gives three separate causes.
One is termination by notification of breach, one is by bankruptcy, and one is by change of control.
These are three separate mechanisms.

5.2 d (i) points to the section for breach.
5.2 d (ii) points to the section for change of control.
Both need to make provision for the case of bankruptcy in e.

 

[Razor1]

that is my understanding too, breach of contract is just a notification based on termination of contract based on certain terms.

 

[3dilettante]

The three mechanisms are separate.
(a) is breach
(b) is bankruptcy
(c) is change of control

The effects of termination spell out that if you go through one mechanism or the other, the outcome is different.
(d) i. says what happens if going through (a), modified by the requirements of any bankruptcy
(d) ii. ways what happens if going through (c), modified by the requirements of any bankruptcy

 

[Alexko]

The three mechanisms are separate.
(a) is breach
(b) is bankruptcy
(c) is change of control

The effects of termination spell out that if you go through one mechanism or the other, the outcome is different.
(d) i. says what happens if going through (a), modified by the requirements of any bankruptcy
(d) ii. ways what happens if going through (c), modified by the requirements of any bankruptcy

I have no more of a legal background than you do, but this is my understanding of the contract as well.

 

[Razor1]

well I see what you guys are saying but either way, you still have this

its not a breach of contract then both parties lose and renegotiation begins..

which is in 5.2 d ii


In the event of any termination of this Agreement pursuant to Section 5.2(c), and subject to the provisions of Section 5.2(e), the rights and licenses granted to both Parties under this Agreement, including without limitation the rights granted under Section 3.8(d), shall terminate as of the effective date of such termination.

 

[IronManLok]

Which, in practise, means Intel would be forced to make a deal, good or bad, with the new AMD owner or else they lose rights to AMD64 which will make their entire CPU line up unsaleable

 

[3dilettante]

Which, in practise, means Intel would be forced to make a deal, good or bad, with the new AMD owner or else they lose rights to AMD64 which will make their entire CPU line up unsaleable

I would say in practice, in light of what Intel has done rather frequently, what would happen is litigation for years until there's little point and then Intel cuts a check.
AMD64 is getting very old in patent terms, so that bit of leverage is fading fast.
Intel can play for time, and it would be a staggeringly destructive reaction by a court to the disruption or failure of a minority CPU player by halting the dominant processor vendor for a lot of critical sectors.

At any rate, the way this deal has been structured, Intel might be more willing to extend this deal to a buyer, after delaying for a couple years. Its patent coverage is structured like a scheduled exit is coming, unless there's another agreement that provides AMD some kind of shield for any products using IP made after 2014.

 

[pharma]

Bounce in AMD's stock may put pressure on short sellers

A two-day rally in the lowly shares of Advanced Micro Devices Inc may be squeezing short sellers, who recently increased their bets against the chipmaker.

Once a plucky competitor to much larger Intel in chips for personal computers and servers, AMD is now struggling to expand into new growth markets and it has repeatedly fallen short of Wall Street's expectations.

The increased cost of borrowing AMD follows a recent leap in the number of AMD shares sold short. About 19.7 percent of AMD's shares outstanding were short sold in mid-July, the most recent data available, up from 15.1 percent at the end of June.

In the options market, bets against AMD have increased since mid-July. Currently, puts outnumber calls 2.4-to-1, the highest since Jan. 26, according to Trade Alert data.

But a strong two-day rebound in AMD shares from all-time lows may be pressuring some short sellers to close their bets to avoid losses.

AMD's stock was up 10.7 percent at $1.96 on Wednesday, adding to a 9 percent gain the day before, with no obvious catalyst driving the rebound.

AMD scores 86 out of 100 in a Starmine model predicting the likelihood of seeing such a short squeeze, considering volatility and availability of shares for borrowing.

Underscoring AMD's troubles, Moody's on Tuesday cut its corporate family rating on AMD to Caa1 from B3, signaling a very high credit risk. It pointed to the company's negative free-cash flow and operating losses in its PC-related business.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015...20150729?feedType=RSS&feedName=technologyNews

 

[Grall]

http://wccftech.com/amd-exascale-heterogeneous-processor-ehp-apu-32-zen-cores-hbm2/

AMD reveals "Exascale Heterogenous Processor" with 32 Zen cores, 16MB total L2 cache, 64MB L3 cache, 32GB stacked-die interposer DRAM, quad-channel DDR4 interface and huge "Greenland"-architecture iGPU.

How on EARTH am I going to be able to afford this monstrous thing...?!

 

[Deleted member 13524]

The IEEE Micro article is everything but revealing. It practically only says "if we were to build a exaflop computer, it would be a little bit like this".

The amounts of cache, HBM and DDR channels are pure speculation from WCCFTech. In fact, I don't think it'd make much sense at all to use quad-channel DDR4 if they already have 32GB of HBM at up to 4TB/s (2048bit at 1GHz). The DDR4 - or other forms of NVRAM that may appear in the future as they say - would be a way to get additional amounts of memory at lower speeds.


My guess is that the article is a way to start making presentations for the competition the U.S. will probably be opening for their upcoming supercomputer.

 

[pharma]

AMD Slips From Ranking of Top 20 Chip Vendors

Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD), which has seen its sales decline over the past several years and has reported six consecutive quarterly losses, slipped out of the top 20 semiconductor vendors as ranked by sales in the first half of 2015, according to market research firm IHS.

But IC Insights noted that AMD’s restructuring and focus on non-PC markets has yet to pay off. The firm noted that AMD lost $361 million in the first half of this year and $403 million in 2014.

Brian Matas, vice president of market research at IC Insights, said in an interview that AMD’s efforts to gain share in enterprise and embedded markets and develop ARM-based processors alongside x86 products have yet to pan out. The continuing decline in PC sales has not helped.

”Nothing has really worked out [for AMD] so far,” Matas said.

To no one’s surprise, Intel Corp. remained the largest semiconductor company in the first half of 2015 with sales of $23.6 billion. Intel has been the world’s biggest chip maker since 1992.

http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1327372

 

[Megadrive1988]

AMD Publishes Patent for Zen Based APUs with Integrated FPGAs and HBM2 Memory on a 2.5D Interposer

http://wccftech.com/amd-patent-zen-apu-integrated-fpga-hbm2/
http://www.itworld.com/article/2968174/hardware/is-amd-eyeing-the-fpga-as-well.html

 

[3dilettante]

The patent's priority date is 2012, the result of it being a modification of an older set of claims.
I don't know enough about the reasons for refiling this patent, but it looks to be making more specific claims for what was once primarily focused on the stack and programmable layer in 2012 to what is now a stack that can be part of an interposer-integrated system.

I do not think this is quite as ambitious as the moves Intel is making, which the tech sites seem to be equating to one another.
AMD intends for a programmable layer that can perform certain transformations on stored data (encrypt, decrypt, change endianess, shift around defects, etc.) in a way that is abstracted from the rest of the system and does not perform independent computation in the way that an Altera-now-Intel FPGA could.

 

[Grall]

Still a neat idea however. One has to wonder though if AMD has the resources to actually DO anything with it tho...

 

[Razor1]

Well resources of R&D are split over years for new products so they should be fine for Zen.

 

[Grall]

Yes, but even if they actually implement this FPGA stuff in hardware, will there be software support to take advantage of it? AMD's market share is so incredibly weak these days, they don't have much leverage anymore (not that it was super awesome even in the best of times, ahumm...)