Advanced Micro Devices

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) was founded on May 1, 1969. Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. is an American multinational semiconductor company based in Sunnyvale, California, United States, that develops computer processors and related technologies for commercial and consumer markets. While initially it manufactured its own processors, the company became fables after Global Foundries was spun off in 2009.

AMD's main products include microprocessors, motherboard chipsets, embedded processors and graphics processors for servers, workstations and personal computers, and embedded systems applications.

AMD is the second-largest global supplier of microprocessors based on the  x86 architecture and also one of the largest suppliers of graphics processing units. It also owns 8.6% of Scansion, a supplier of non-volatile flash memory.

AMD is the only significant rival to Intel in the central processor (CPU) market for (x86 based) personal computers. Since acquiring ATI in 2006, AMD and its competitor Nvidia have dominated the discrete graphics processor unit (GPU) market.

The company began as a producer of logic chips, then entered the RAM chip business in 1975. That same year, it introduced a reverse-engineered clone of the Intel 8080 microprocessor. During this period, AMD also designed and produced a series of bit-slice processor elements (Am2900, Am29116, Am293xx ) which were used in various minicomputer designs.

            In February 1982, AMD signed a contract with Intel, becoming a licensed second-source manufacturer of 8086 and 8088 processors. IBM wanted to use the Intel 8088 in its IBM PC, but IBM's policy at the time was to require at least two sources for its chips. AMD later produced the Am286 under the same arrangement, but Intel canceled the agreement in 1986 and refused to convey technical details of the i386 part. AMD challenged Intel's decision to cancel the agreement and won in arbitration, but Intel disputed this decision. A long legal dispute followed, ending in 1994 when the Supreme Court of California sided with AMD. Subsequent legal disputes centered on whether AMD had legal rights to use derivatives of Intel's micro-code. In the face of uncertainty, AMD was forced to develop clean room designed versions of Intel code.

In 1991, AMD released the Am386, its clone of the Intel 386 processor. It took less than a year for the company to sell a million units. Later, the Am486 was used by a number of large original equipment manufacturers, including Compaq, and proved popular. Another Am486-based product, the Am5x86, continued AMD's success as a low-price alternative. However, as product cycles shortened in the PC industry, the process of reverse engineering Intel's products became an ever less viable strategy for AMD.