AMD is Delaware corporations, headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, which designs, develops and manufacturers semiconductor chips.
AMD’s involvement in personal computing spans the entire history of the industry. The company supplied every generations of PC processor from the 8088 used in the first IBM PCs, to the new, seventh-generations AMD Athlon processor.
AMD or Advanced Micro Devices began in 1969 after marketing whiz Jerry Sanders lost his job at Fairchild Semiconductor. He was fired despite being one of the company’s top salesmen.
With his seven friends, Jerry Sanders founded AMD and it was officially incorporated in May 1, 1969. The company formed two groups: The Analog Operations was headed by Lawrence Stenger. The second group, Complex Digital Functions, was headed by John Carey.
By putting Sanders marketing know-how to work, he was able to overcome a capital shortage and lack of management experience to launch AMD and go public in 1972.
The company was expected to be operating in August 1969 and the company was operating out of Jerry Sander’s home on Hillpark in Sunnyvale.
In September 1969, AMD moves into a 15,000 square foot facility at Thomson Place in Sunnyvale.
During early years the company’s major products were outsourced from other companies that were redesigned and upgraded for better speed and efficiency.
With a capitalization of $1.7 million it has merged not only as a major success story but as the hottest growth company in Silicon Valley.
By March 1970, AMD’s workforce consisted of 53 employees and was manufacturing 18 complex digital and linear integrated circuits.
By early 1980s, AMD had grown into fashionable player in the worldwide chip industry.
In 1989, AMD first produced non-Intel clone chip sold very well in cheaper computers. The 386’s font side bus and the processor ran at the same speed of 33 MHz which allowed it to compete with Intel. At the same year AMD also releases 40 MHz versions called 3986DX and 386SX.
The company became well known when it shipped its K6 CPUs in 1997 before it rose to greater prominence with its Athlon series of processors. K6 was often seen as a competitor to Intel’s Pentium and Pentium II processors.
History of Advanced Micro Devices
