AMD and Fujitsu Spin Off Static Memory Giant 97
prostoalex writes "AMD and Fujitsu will form a new memory company. While corporations typically form new spinoffs every time you turn around, this one is different, claims ZDNet, since it looks like AMD will be splitting into two companies, one dealing in the microprocessor market, another in memory."
Logical move for AMD (Score:1)
Hmm (Score:1)
ma&pa? (Score:2)
AMD doing memory??? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:AMD doing memory??? (Score:1)
Re:AMD doing memory??? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Apples to Oranges, or... (Score:1)
mutter, mutter, MHz myth...mutter, mutter...
Re:Apples to Oranges, or... (Score:1)
Re:AMD doing memory??? (Score:2)
Re:AMD doing memory??? (Score:1)
Re:AMD doing memory??? (Score:4, Funny)
Yes, but this happens only after Intel announces their new 1024GB memory, which has only 6 bits per byte..
Re:AMD doing memory??? (Score:2)
Which has a 33,000 mile bus, increasing the latency to 400ms...
(Processor-)AMD seems to be confident (Score:5, Informative)
And remember that AMD is much-much more than Athlon/Hammer, they make lot's of different processors.
I hope you're right! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I hope you're right! (Score:3, Funny)
Sometimes it's nice to be reassured that I'm reading Slashdot. Can anybody think of geekier analogy?
Why? (Score:2, Insightful)
iMHO.
Re:Why? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Why? (Score:2)
Interestingly, Intel used to have most of its business in memory, but had to make an abrupt switch to processors when it were undercut by memory producers in Japan. Andy Grove writes about this in his book Only the Paranoid Survive [amazon.co.uk].
AMD is toast? (Score:2)
Motivation (Score:5, Informative)
There are more indepth articles about this here [iht.com] and here [internet.com]. The latter article discussed the motivation for the move in a little more depth:
"This is only going to help AMD and Fujitsu become as stronger competitor and move up in market position," said Krewell. "They are in better shape to challenge Intel because they appear as one stronger brand, rather than as two lesser brands."
Or... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Athlon XPs hotter than the sun. (Score:4, Funny)
I didn't believe you so I actually tested it. And you're right! My Athlon 2600 XP box puts off WAYYY more heat than my Ultra 80!
Re:Athlon XPs hotter than the sun. (Score:2)
This is because Sun makes reasonable power consumption a genuine design goal for UltraSPARC. I would bet that controlling power consumption is one reason why UltraSPARCs appear to be falling behind in the SPEC pseudo-wars. Regardless, it is pretty impressive that 1GHz UltraSPARC III systems can have the FP throughput of 2.8GHz Pentium 4s but at only 50 or so watts per CPU.
Re:Athlon XPs hotter than the sun. (Score:2)
*sigh*
Re:Athlon XPs hotter than the sun. (Score:1)
I'm still convinced Suns are better engineering workstations than PCs for the money. Soon, however, the Opteron will be very enticing, and will be pitted sqarely against the UltraSPARC IIIi. PTC is beginning to sell Pro/E for Linux, so Opteron/Linux workstations could be very good. I hope Sun has a business plan to beat/join this trend.
One thing I've noticed, regardless of the CPU, is that the Sun graphics cards have a very high-
Re:Athlon XPs hotter than the sun. (Score:2)
I agree...I'm looking an Ultra 60 with an Elite 3D graphics card and it's output is in
Re:Athlon XPs hotter than the _Sun_. (Score:2)
this presentation by one of Intel guys:
http://www.intel.com/research/mrl/library/micro
(check out slide #8)
comparing power density on CPU surface with other
hot objects. Hot plate power density was
surpassed by Pentium II, now we are moving
pretty fast to nuclear reactor, and Sun surface
is there on the plot too!
Anyway, check it out.
Paul Bu.
Re:Or... (Score:1)
Er... you mean... they dont already?
I thought thats what I had, it does heat the room pretty well...
Re:Or... (Score:2, Insightful)
Slashdot Karma Whore Business Plan:
1) say something about [hot AMD CPUs/how Microsoft sucks/Linux is best for task X]
2) ?????
3) Karma Profit!!!
Didja know the latest Pentium4's put out more heat than the Athlon XP?
Re:Or... (Score:2)
The Press Release (Score:5, Informative)
And what I feel is a better article [internetnews.com].
Compact Flash Future? (Score:2)
Rus
Disc is still better for repeated writes (Score:2)
Although there are filesystems available for embedded systems that distribute writes to flash as much as possible, flash drives will wear out a lot faster than their microdrive counterparts in write-intensive applications.
Re:Compact Flash Future? (Score:1)
Pretec has announced a CF-card with 6 GB of flash at Cebit (lowering the price of the 3 GB ones)
Since the ATA protocol needs some interface circuits it can probably be adapted to larger sizes and if size is the only thing that matters you can always try to connect a normal harddrive with an adapter.
Re:Compact Flash Future? (Score:1)
Splitting? Hah! (Score:1, Insightful)
The Flash business is the (relative) cash cow that's keeping the rest of the company afloat. No way it's going to split.
That's a neat trick -- include an outrageous-but-believeable-to-newbies statment in your story submission, get it posted! I'll have to try that.
Re:Splitting? Hah! (Score:2)
No, they split the CPU divison away, assign it all the debts, and let it die, which gives the more lucrative flash division a big jump on the books.
Coca Cola used to do this with spinoffs.
Re:Splitting? Hah! (Score:1)
Though if you happen to really have some data on this -- I'd be interested to hear it. ;)
Great! (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Great! (Score:3, Informative)
Not Static Memory (Score:4, Informative)
When talk exceeds the bounds of the talker's knowledge, there ought to be a segfault
Re:Not Static Memory (Score:1)
When talk exceeds the bounds of the talker's knowledge, there ought to be a segfault :-)
Nah, then Eric Raymond's laptop would put the lie to claims that Linux doesn't crash.
Siemens / Infinion (Score:2, Interesting)
Flash (Score:2)
The new company, which will include all of both companies' flash memory operations, will be headed by Bertrand Cambou, who was recently promoted to senior vice president at AMD, the newspaper said, adding that the company would have one combined sales force.
Hey just think, if they got Sony in there memory sticks would be everywhere!
Just wanted to add.... (Score:1, Informative)
This is a good move for AMD. I am really excited to see the future of AMD.
This had roots in earlier activities (Score:1, Informative)
AMD shares. (Score:1)
Bad News for Athlon? (Score:4, Interesting)
While the processor industry will be poorer for it, there's no reason why the shareholders should have to foot the bill just so we have competition that lowers Intel's prices and makes their processors faster.
Re:Bad News for Athlon? (Score:2)
Re:Bad News for Athlon? (Score:2)
I'm a bit more pessimistic about AMD's CPU division's chances.
Re:Bad News for Athlon? (Score:4, Insightful)
Shareholders invested in a microprocessor company that makes chips that compete with Intel Corp.'s chips. If they do not intend to sell microprocessors, they should not purchase stock in AMD.
I'm sorry, but if you own shares, you already agreed to foot the bill. If you don't like how they are running the show with your invested money, SELL YOUR FUCKING SHARES. So typical of shareholders nowadays to think that the board of a company owes you personally something because you bought 3rd hand stock equivilent to like
The stock market is a gamble. If you lose your money, Tuff shit. It's not the board's job to make sure every
If you dont like the way they run shit, GO START YOUR OWN COMPANY AND RUN IT HOW YOU WANT IT. And stop bitching to slashdot that you are unhappy with the way the REAL owners that have REAL stakes in the company are running it. It's people like you that royally fuck up the way the stock market is run.
[/rant]
Re:Bad News for Athlon? (Score:2)
Umm...no. The company *does* owe you, personally, the value of your stock. Sorry, but that's just how capitalism works.
Re:Bad News for Athlon? (Score:1)
ONLY if you were in on the initial IPO. As the original poster stated, the company shouldn't have to care less about making sure you get a positive return on stock that you paid $100/share on because it's "the hot thing on the market" if you didn't buy it from them directly. People seem to forget that the entire purpose of a company selling stock is to raise capital. Their obligation back to the shareholder is to pay them back part of the p
Re:Bad News for Athlon? (Score:1)
Re:Bad News for Athlon? (Score:2)
Secondly, Since joe stock owner doesn't own, or come close to owning, 51% of the stock, and the board members and officers do (in the real world), Your whole point about voting is mute (except in certain circumstances of companies
Re:Bad News for Athlon? (Score:1)
Firstly, the argument on politics is irrelevant as there are democrats and republicans in all my classes. Don't make yourself look even more stupid by denying basic economics and finance. Also, noone is an "expert" on the market
Re:Bad News for Athlon? (Score:3, Interesting)
This is an argument about politics, read further to see why...
"I follow your reasoning, but it's really not relevant"
Ahh, but it is relevant to a
Re:Bad News for Athlon? (Score:1)
I agree that long-term growth is much more important than short-term profits and hyping stocks to overvalue them temporarily, then selling them off for a profit.
I also agree that ethics are a big problem today in management. Most of these corporate scandals are from hotshot execs that thought they could hide from fiscal reality forever (or at least until they retired
Re:Bad News for Athlon? (Score:2)
thanks for the reply, and discussion
Re:Bad News for Athlon? (Score:2)
Bonds are loans with an obligation to pay back money.
Stocks are a certificate of ownership.
Re:Bad News for Athlon? (Score:2)
"Umm...no. The company *does* owe you, personally, the value of your stock. Sorry, but that's just how capitalism works."
then later on, you try to correct someone else's statement, and then put your foot in your mouth:
"You're confusing bonds and stocks.
Bonds are loans with an obligation to pay back money.
Stocks are a certificate of ownership."
So which is it? are they obligated to pay you the value of the stock? Or not? You offer 2 conflicting vi
Re:Bad News for Athlon? (Score:2)
AMD / Fujitsu comments / info (Score:5, Interesting)
Same time - few realize the tanglement between AMD and Fujitsu. They have been doing ventures together for a long time now - a few years back they put together a joint plant - it wasn't a great success as I remembered it, though
Did y'all know Fujitsu is *the* largest computer / IT stuff manufacture in Japan?
Lastly, AMD flash is going toward Mirror bit, while Intel is going toward multi-level storage. Honestly, intel version has more expandability (to a point - storing 1024 levels per cell is just impossible) - so we will see how that works out.
Just random stuff I had in mind when I read the article - thought people might find them useless but nontheless mildly interesting.
I personally wish them well, but I do wonder what would happen if they go into DRAM. They would either get slaughtered (lack of experience), or some DRAM manufactures would just go off and die (even more, for Hynix, or severely cripple, like NEC, Mitsubishi, etc who are small players in the DRAM area). DRAM market simply won't hold this many people (already seen so many consolidations as of the past).
Not quite... (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes, AMD and Fujitsu have been in cahoots for a long time, but it was a really great venture rather than the poor one you hint at. They created FASL (Fujitsu-AMD Semiconductor Limited) which ships the lion's share of the world's flash. Several more fabs have been started as part of the FASL venture. Iw was, and is, a great success.
Intel has been in multi-level cells, but the practical limit on it is the four-level cell they have now. They have just recently gotte
Re:AMD / Fujitsu comments / info (Score:2)
I wish more companies would do that.
Re:So what? AMD is going under... (Score:2)
I doubt Intel will be interested in buying anything but patents.