AMD getting out of fabrication?
What do you do when you're always playing catch-up to Intel, watching your workstation market share slip, and piling up something like $2 billion in debt? Well if you're AMD, you seriously consider dropping your fabrication business. According to reports, the company is currently investigating its options for outsourcing more (or all) of its manufacturing to third-party firms in deals similar to the ones it has with Chartered Semiconductor and Taiwan Semiconductor. There are drawbacks, of course, including the possibility of longer development times due to the separation of design and manufacturing (the last thing AMD wants, considering recent Barcelona delay rumors). Regardless of what its final decision will be, it's clear that the news has already hurt the struggling chipmaker in the short-term by causing several market analysts to downgrade the company's stock.
[Via Techmeme]
