foundries

Advanced Micro Devices' former manufacturing operation, which was spun off recently by the chipmaker, launches on Wednesday as "Globalfoundries."

The new company is expected to make New York a hub of chip development and manufacturing.

Globalfoundries, which had been provisionally named The Foundry Company, is headed by Doug Grose, formerly senior vice president of manufacturing operations at AMD. Hector Ruiz, formerly AMD's chief executive, will become chairman of the board. It will be headquartered in Sunnyvale, Calif.

The breakup of AMD will present challenges from day one. AMD has become, essentially, a design house for chips.

"… Read more

Advanced Micro Devices has appointed a new chairman to replace former CEO and Chairman Hector Ruiz, as it closes the deal to spin off its manufacturing operations.

AMD on Monday announced that Bruce Claflin has been appointed chairman of its board of directors. Claflin replaces Ruiz, who retired from AMD's board. Ruiz is now chairman of the board of The Foundry Company--the chip manufacturing concern that was spun off officially on Monday.

Claflin--who has been a member of AMD's board of directors since August 2003--has held senior positions with IBM and Digital Equipment and most recently was CEO … Read more

Advanced Micro Devices' manufacturing spinoff got an all-clear from the U.S. government on Tuesday.

The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), part of the U.S. Treasury Department, gave the green light to AMD and the Advanced Technology Investment Company (ATIC) to create The Foundry Company, the manufacturing operations that AMD spun off back in October.

CFIUS has also determined that "the proposed additional investment in AMD by Mubadala is not a covered transaction subject to CFIUS review," according to AMD.

ATIC will own 65.8 percent of The Foundry Company and AMD 34.… Read more

Advanced Micro Devices said Monday that it will incur $70 million in restructuring costs in the fourth quarter, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The filing also cited fourth-quarter layoffs of 600 employees. An AMD spokesperson said that approximately 500 layoffs were announced in November, but that the company "ended up closer to 600."

The restructuring dollar figure is new, AMD said. The company now estimates that the "restructuring expense that it will record in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2008 will be approximately $70 million, based on the restructuring plan approved by … Read more

Advanced Micro Devices will reduce its stake in the manufacturing operations it spun off in October, as it adjusts to repercussions of the financial crisis.

This follows a fourth-quarter warning earlier this month when the chipmaker revised its revenue estimate downward.

And like the shares of many companies, AMD's stock price has been in a free fall. Dropping from over $7 back in June to $2.10 on Monday.

Monday's action revolves around Abu Dhabi-based Mubadala Development and the Advanced Technology Investment Company (ATIC)--which Mubadala backs.

ATIC has equal voting rights with AMD in the newly formed … Read more

IBM is now offering 45-nanometer chipmaking "foundry" services based on its silicon-on-insulator technology.

Foundries have become a big business in the chip industry. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the largest foundry in the world, builds chips for Advanced Micro Devices and Nvidia. AMD announced in October that it was spinning off its manufacturing operations into a foundry.

Most of the advanced manufacturing technology offered to date at foundries has been based on a 65-nanometer process. Typically, the smaller the chip geometries, the faster or more power-efficient the chips are.

On Monday, IBM said that 45-nanometer (nm) silicon-on-insulator (SOI) foundry services … Read more

More dire forecasts for the chip industry.

On the heels of comments from a chip industry watchdog group last week saying the chip equipment business is "on hold," Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the world's largest contract chip manufacturer, said PC-related chip shipments are expected to be off 20 percent in the fourth quarter.

This bodes ill for PC makers, which appear to be cutting way back on chip orders.

"(For) our fourth quarter computer-related wafer shipments...we expect to see over a 20 percent decline. Which is very severe...compared to a seasonal mid-teens percentage … Read more

Shares of Foundry Networks soared more than 17 percent in premarket trading Thursday, after the company announced last evening that its merger with Brocade was still alive but at a lower purchase price.

Under the revised agreement, Brocade reduced its purchase price for the Santa Clara, Calif.-based switching and routing provider to approximately $2.6 billion from its initial agreement of $3 billion. Foundry shareholders are entitled to receive $16.50 a share in cash for every share of the company they own, verses $18.50 a share in cash and 0.0907 shares of Brocade common stock in … Read more

Update at 4:45 p.m. PDT, with information from Foundry's proxy filing on adjourning the meeting to get more shareholder votes.

Foundry Networks delayed a meeting to vote on its merger with Brocade Communications Systems until next week, after failing to get enough investors to support the deal.

Foundry called a special shareholders meeting at 10 a.m. PDT on Friday to vote on its proposed merger with Brocade, which was valued at approximately $3 billion when it was announced in July.

But shortly before 2 p.m., Foundry announced it would adjourn the meeting until Wednesday at … Read more