ALKHOBAR: Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD) will certainly mark 2009 as a year to remember. Last month the company settled its lawsuit with Intel, agreeing to accept $1.25 billion in cash from the rival computer chip maker. For years, AMD asserted that Intel used unfair tactics to dominate the chip market. Some analysts were disappointed in the size of the settlement, but AMD viewed it as an essential step in moving the company toward a successful future.

“Because of the great news that we had in the settlement of the antitrust lawsuit, we believe that AMD will be able to compete effectively against Intel” said Dr. Gaith Kadir, GM of AMD Middle East, Turkey and Africa. “Now there are fair and clear rules of the road. Intel admitted wrongdoing. Now we can focus on increasing our market share without our customers and partners fearing retaliation. We do believe AMD is well positioned in being able to compete in a fair and open competition. This, coupled with the ATI Radeon HD 5970, the fastest graphics card ever created, delivering nearly 5 TeraFLOPS of compute power, and AMD’s strong platform road map for 2010, mean that we look forward to increased profitability in the months ahead.”

The ATI Radeon HD 5970 fully supports Microsoft DirectX 11 technology and ATI Eyefinity multi-display technology. Microsoft DirectX is a collection of graphics technologies designed to deliver a visually impressive graphics experience, which is particularly appreciated by gamers. DirectX coupled with ATI Eyefinity means gaming enthusiasts can create ultra-immersive playing environments by supporting multiple screens simultaneously. In the workplace, Eyefinity boosts everyday productivity, and eases multitasking with the possibility of a vastly expanded visual workspace.

In the coming year, AMD believes that PC users will increasingly use more visually demanding applications. The company will continue to deliver platforms with balanced performance and superior multimedia and visual computing capabilities. Of interest to consumers and gamers, AMD’s platform road map for 2010 includes (by codename):

• Danube is the next AMD mainstream notebook platform featuring the first AMD mobile quad-core processors. Danube is expected to offer seven or more hours of battery life;

• Nile will be a third Generation AMD ultrathin notebook platform, designed to offer seven or more hours of battery life;

• Leo is the next-generation enthusiast-class desktop PC platform with the industry’s first six-core desktop CPU, expected to deliver outstanding performance for immersive gaming with support for DirectX 11 graphics and ATI Eyefinity Technology.

The business community can look forward to San Marino and Maranello, two new DDR3-based server platforms designed for the volume server market. Maranello, with the 8- and 12-core Magny-Cours processor will represent the beginning of new leaps in performance-per-watt for AMD Opteron processors, while San Marino will offer greater levels of value and power efficiency for the rapidly growing Web and Cloud Computing segment.

News about the latest platforms is always welcomed by Saudi gamers, but there is a certain amount of frustration as well. The Kingdom’s tech enthusiasts tend to be starved for machines assembled with high-end configurations, with 100 units being made available when demand is for 1,000. This has resulted in many gamers turning to gray market PCs, which lack the after-sales support of the local channel.

“We have seen that HP, Acer, and Dell are now bringing very high end machines to the Middle East and everyone says that Saudi Arabia is their number one market,” Kadir remarked. “AMD has had extremely successful product launches with our 5000 series graphics cards and that has led to some issues with supply and demand. We understand that we need to get our products everywhere in the world and it is clear we need to do a better job to get our high end solutions into the Saudi market ASAP. We will be expanding our activities in the Kingdom in the coming year.”

Also expanding its activities is ATIC — The Advanced Technology Investment Co., owned by Mubadala, the sovereign wealth fund of the government of Abu Dhabi. ATIC is moving rapidly to becoming a major force in semiconductor manufacturing.

“It is essential to note that as of today, Mubadala owns about 21 percent of AMD. It is an astute investor and we are very proud to be associated with them. Mubadala created a company called ATIC which focuses on the semi-conductor industry. Earlier this year, ATIC and AMD created a joint venture called GlobalFoundries, with AMD as the minority shareholder,” explained Kadir. “GlobalFoundries initially had two 300mm fabrication plants (fabs) — one in Germany and one under construction in New York.”

In September, ATIC bought Singapore-based Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd., for $3.9 billion. Chartered’s operations have been folded into GlobalFoundries, with GlobalFoundries CEO Doug Grose heading the combined company. “Of course Mubadala and ATIC also want to bring diversification for industries in the Middle East and specifically for Abu Dhabi,” said Kadir. “With that goal in mind, ATIC’s Chairman Waleed Al-Mokarrab Al-Muhairi announced that ATIC will bring a Fab into Abu Dhabi and that will be under the GlobalFoundries umbrella.”

While AMD’s outlook is positive, there is reason to be cautious about the company’s prospects. AMD’s future success depends in a large part on the continuing improvement in the global economy. According to IDC, worldwide PC microprocessor shipments in the third calendar quarter of 2009 (3Q09) rose substantially and to all-time record levels for a single quarter. IDC data indicated that PC processor unit shipments in 3Q09 rose 23 percent compared to 2Q09, growth that is approximately double the normal growth in unit shipments for the same period. In terms of revenue, the PC processor market grew more than 14 percent quarter over quarter to $7.4 billion.

Unfortunately AMD wasn’t the major beneficiary of the improving conditions. In 3Q09, Intel earned 81.1 percent share of the worldwide PC processor market’s unit shipments, a share gain of 2.2 percent, while AMD earned 18.7 percent, a loss of 2 percent and VIA Technologies earned .2 percent. IDC indicated that there could be a downturn in chip demand early in 2010. For the future though, AMD’s plan is to get away from simply focusing on the chip. AMD’s president and CEO Dirk Meyer believes that AMD is on the path for sustained success and growth in 2010 and beyond.

“In 2009, AMD transformed into a design innovation leader with a new business model tuned to deliver consistent financial performance,” said Meyer. “In 2010, we plan to extend our clear graphics leadership and market momentum with new server and client platforms designed to deliver superior performance against key end-user workloads. And in 2011, we plan to usher in a new era of computing with our first AMD Fusion products, placing AMD on a clear path to industry leadership.”

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