AMD
Advanced Micro Devices was founded on May 1, 1969, by a group of former executives from Fairchild Semiconductor, including Jerry Sanders III, Ed Turney, John Carey, Sven Simonsen, Jack Gifford and three members from Gifford's team, Frank Botte, Jim Giles, and Larry Stenger. 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.During this time, AMD attempted to embrace the perceived shift towards RISC with their own AMD Am29000 (29k) processor, and also attempted to diversify into graphics and audio devices as well as EPROM memory. It had some success in the mid-1980s with the AMD7910 and AMD7911 "World Chip" FSK modem, one of the first multi-standard devices that covered both Bell and CCITT tones at up to 1200 baud half duplex or 300/300 full duplex.
The 29k survived as an embedded processor and AMD spinoff Spansion continues to make flash memory. AMD decided to switch gears and concentrate solely on Intel-compatible microprocessors and flash memory, placing them in direct competition with Intel for x86-compatible processors and their flash memory secondary markets.AMD announced the acquisition of ATI Technologies on July 24, 2006. AMD paid $4.3 billion in cash and 58 million shares of its stock, for a total of US$5.4 billion. The transaction completed on October 25, 2006. Since 2010, all of the company's graphics processing products have been marketed under the AMD brand name.
It was reported in December 2006 that AMD, along with its main rival in the graphics industry Nvidia, received subpoenas from the Justice Department regarding possible antitrust violations in the graphics card industry, including the act of fixing prices.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. The new venture is called GlobalFoundries Inc..
This partnership will allow AMD to focus solely on chip design. The spin off was accompanied by the loss of approximately 1000 jobs, or about 10% of AMD's global workforce.In August 2011, AMD announced that former Lenovo executive Rory Read would be joining the company as CEO, following Dirk Meyer.AMD announced in November 2011 plans to lay off more than 10% (1400) of its employees from across all divisions worldwide. This action was to have completed by Q1 2012 with most exits before Christmas 2011. AMD announced in October 2012 plans to release an additional 15% of its workforce with an unspecified effective date to reduce costs in the face of declining sales revenue.AMD acquired the low-power server manufacturer SeaMicro in early 2012 as part of a strategy to regain lost market share in the server chip market.
Source: Wikipedia
Intel
Intel Corporation is an American multinational semiconductor chip maker corporation headquartered in Santa Clara, California. Intel is one of the world's largest and highest valued semiconductor chip makers, based on revenue. It is the inventor of the x86 series of microprocessors, the processors found in most personal computers.
Intel Corporation, founded on July 18, 1968, is a portmanteau of IntegratedElectronics (the fact that "intel" is the term for intelligence information also made the name appropriate). Intel also makes motherboard chipsets, network interface controllers and integrated circuits, flash memory, graphic chips, embedded processors and other devices related to communications and computing. Founded by semiconductor pioneers Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore and widely associated with the executive leadership and vision of Andrew Grove, Intel combines advanced chip design capability with a leading-edge manufacturing capability. Though Intel was originally known primarily to engineers and technologists, its "Intel Inside" advertising campaign of the 1990s made it a household name, along with its Pentium processors.
Intel was an early developer of SRAM and DRAM memory chips, and this represented the majority of its business until 1981. Although Intel created the world's first commercial microprocessor chip in 1971, it was not until the success of the personal computer (PC) that this became its primary business. During the 1990s, Intel invested heavily in new microprocessor designs fostering the rapid growth of the computer industry. During this period Intel became the dominantsupplier of microprocessors for PCs, and was known for aggressive and sometimes illegal tactics in defense of its market position, particularly againstAdvanced Micro Devices (AMD), as well as a struggle with Microsoft for control over the direction of the PC industry.
The 2013 rankings of the world's 100 most valuable brands published by Millward Brown Optimor showed the company's brand value at number 61.
Intel has also begun research into electrical transmission and generation.Intel has recently introduced a 3-D transistor that improves performance and energy efficiency. Intel has begun mass-producing this 3-D transistor, named the Tri-Gate transistor, with their 22 nm process, which is currently used in their 3rd generation core processors initially released on April 29, 2012. In 2011, SpectraWatt Inc., a solar cell spinoff of Intel, filed for bankruptcy under Chapter 11. In June 2013, Intel unveiled its fourth generation of Intel Core processors (Haswell) in an event named Computex in Taipei.
The Open Source Technology Center at Intel hosts PowerTOP andLatencyTOP, and supports other open-source projects such as Wayland, Intel Array Building Blocks, Threading Building Blocks (TBB), and Xen.
Source: Wikipedia