AMD denies report it plans to sell off manufacturing operations

While it may not all be his doing, newly-minted AMD CEO Dirk Meyer seems to be at the center of more than a bit of confusion in his first few days on the job. First, he detailed AMD's plans to take on Intel's Atom processor this fall, which was apparently news to AMD's Chief Marketing Officer, and now AMD is denying a report that AMD is set to spin off its manufacturing operations into a separate company, which arose out of an interview Meyer gave to the Austin American-Statesman. In it, Meyer reportedly said that AMD was "just months away" from spinning off its fabrication business, which would let it concentrate on designing, marketing and selling chips, and allow it to compete more effectively against its two big rivals: Intel and NVIDIA. As eWEEK reports, however, an AMD spokesperson now says that Meyer was referring simply to "how the company manufactures its wafers," which could possibly be a reference to the company's planned shift to a 45-nanometer manufacturing process. That's quite a difference, and we're guessing we'll be hearing yet more "clarification" on the matter before all is said and done.

Read - Austin American-Statesman, "New AMD chief sees clear path to recovery"
Read - eWEEK, "AMD Denies Fab Sell-Off"

[Thanks, Chris]

[kal326 @ Jul 24th 2008 4:44PM]

Seriously AMD needs to get this guy a handler or just stop letting him talk to the outside world. Conflicting reports and confusion among the ranks in the public eye is not what AMD needs right now. Kind of hard to present yourself as a respectable company when your CEO makes an ass of himself on a weekly basis.

[justin @ Jul 24th 2008 4:52PM]

Don't make me send Dr. Phil over there.
AMD's executive staff is more dysfunctional than the Lohan family.

[icepop4who @ Jul 24th 2008 4:54PM]

PLANNED shift to 45nm manufacturing process

wow. ROFLMAO

[Lolento @ Jul 24th 2008 6:33PM]

They need to spin off their fab arm in order to have profitable chip division.

Problem is that they are not bleeding edge like Samsung who also did the same thing about two years ago. In fact, they are relying on other subcons (ATi with TSMC). If they do spin off their fabs, they will lose capacity leverage with subcons.

[Prestor John @ Jul 24th 2008 9:11PM]

I'll wait to see what Viditor has to say.

[Mam00th @ Jul 24th 2008 9:16PM]

I thought they are speaking about 300 mm wafer instead of 200 mm wafer but I might be wrong.

[Charles @ Jul 25th 2008 1:53AM]

He is probably referring to their 200mm fabs. It's incredibly expensive to build a new fab, but even more expensive to retool an existing fab to handle larger wafers. Most companies just build another fab and use the old one for low-end products, or in this case (maybe), sell it.

[ShadowKain @ Jul 25th 2008 1:35PM]

First they fail to jump on the 45nm bandwagon, then the atom debacle, oh AMD WHYYYYYYYY??!??

:D

Hang in there...

[Walt @ Jul 26th 2008 12:19AM]

NVIDIA has had a couple of bad news items recently, resulting in an excellent stock price for those looking for a bargain.

[youngcalihottie @ Jul 26th 2008 12:28AM]

maybe they should just sell off their CEO-interview-operations?