Amd History

By May 1969 he and seven others officially launched Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.

The company released its first product in 1970 and went public two years later.

Its best-selling product in 1971 was the Am2505, the fastest multiplier available.

In September 1972 the company went public, selling 525,000 shares at $15 a share, bringing in $7.87 million.

To commemorate its five-year anniversary in May 1974, AMD began what was to become a renowned tradition, holding a gala party, this one a street fair attended by employees and their families, in which televisions, ten-speed bicycles, and barbecue grills were given away.

The company began as a producer of logic chips, then entered the RAM chip business in 1975.

In 1976 the company signed a cross-license agreement with Intel.

In 1977, AMD entered into a joint venture with Siemens, a German engineering conglomerate wishing to enhance its technology expertise and enter the American market.

Intel had introduced the first x86 microprocessors in 1978.

In 1979 the company's shares were listed on the New York Stock Exchange for the first time under the ticker AMD; that same year, production began at AMD's newly constructed Austin, Texas facility.

In 1980, AMD began supplying semiconductor products for telecommunications, an industry undergoing rapid expansion and innovation.

AMD closed Advanced Micro Computers in late 1981 after switching focus to manufacturing second-source Intel x86 microprocessors.

The main result of the 1982 agreement was that AMD became a second-source manufacturer of Intel's x86 microprocessors and related chips, and Intel provided AMD with database tapes for its 8086, 80186, and 80286 chips.

In 1983, it introduced INT.STD.1000, the highest manufacturing quality standard in the industry.

The company continued to spend greatly on research and development, and in addition to other breakthrough products, created the world's first 512K EPROM in 1984.

That year, AMD was listed in the book The 100 Best Companies to Work for in America, and later made the Fortune 500 list for the first time in 1985.

Beginning in 1986, AMD embraced the perceived shift toward RISC with their own AMD Am29000 (29k) processor; the 29k survived as an embedded processor.

In April 1987, AMD initiated an arbitration action against Intel.

In May 1989, the company established the office of the chief executive, consisting of the top three company executives.

In 1991 AMD released the Am386 microprocessor family, a reverse-engineered chip that was compatible with Intel’s next-generation 32-bit 386 microprocessor.

Early in 1993, the first members of the Am486 microprocessor family were introduced, and AMD and Fujitsu established a joint venture to produce flash memories, a new technology in which memory chips retained information even after the power was turned off.

In March 1994, a federal court jury confirmed AMD's right to use Intel microcode in 287 math coprocessors, and the company celebrated its 25th anniversary with Rod Stewart in Sunnyvale and Bruce Hornsby in Austin.

In 1996 AMD acquired a microprocessor company known as NexGen and began branching out from the Intel-compatible chip market.

For fiscal 1998, the company posted net sales of $2.54 billion, a 7.9 percent increase, but also recorded a painful net loss on income of $104 million.

AMD was also the first processor to be brand to make a seventh generation processor for Microsoft windows computing in 1999 with the AMD Athlon MP processor.

In 2000 AMD introduced the Athlon processor, which was designed to run the Microsoft Corporation’s Windows operating system.

In 2003 the company released the Opteron chip, another product that showcased the company’s ability to produce high-end chips.

In December 2005, AMD divested itself of Spansion in order to focus on the microprocessor market, and Spansion went public in an IPO.

In October 2008, AMD announced plans to spin off manufacturing operations in the form of a multibillion-dollar joint venture with Advanced Technology Investment Co., an investment company formed by the government of Abu Dhabi.

In 2009, following a series of complaints lodged by AMD, the European Commission fined rival Intel a record €1.06 billion (£948 million; $1.45 billion) for engaging in anticompetitive practices that violated the European Union’s antitrust laws.

Since 2010, all of the company’s graphics processing products have been marketed under the AMD brand name.

In October 2012, it announced plans to lay off an additional 15% of its workforce to reduce costs in the face of declining sales revenue.

Since opening at the end of 2013, over 5,000 children have visited the Centre.

In April 2019, the Irvine Company secured approval from the Sunnyvale City Council of its plans to demolish 1 AMD Place and redevelop the entire 32-acre site into townhomes and apartments.