AMD

We at AMD share a vision of a world that is enhanced through information technology, which liberates the human mind and spirit. AMD is a leading supplier of critical enabling technology for the Information Age. In concert with our customers, we empower people everywhere to lead more productive lives by creating, processing, and communicating information and knowledge. We are our customers' favorite integrated circuit supplier. Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) is one of the world leaders in the microprocessor industry, ranking second behind Intel Corporation. Although AMD's roughly ten percent share of the overall market pales in comparison to Intel's 80 percent, the Sunnyvale, California company is considered a fierce competitor. AMD is considered especially strong as a supplier to the low-end PC market, where it commands a nearly 60 percent share. Nonetheless, AMD's future health seemed dependent on diversification beyond its traditional markets and products. In addition to microprocessors and integrated circuits, the company also produces flash memories, programmable logic devices, and products for networking and communications applications. In 1968 Jerry Sanders (who had previously worked for Intel founder Robert Noyce) left his position as director of worldwide marketing at Fairchild Semiconductor. By May 1969 he and seven others officially launched Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. The company was incorporated with $100,000 with the purpose of building semiconductors for the electronics industry. Although the company was initially headquartered in the living room of one of the cofounders, John Carey, it soon moved to two rooms in the back of a rugcutting company in Santa Clara, California. By September of that year, AMD had raised the additional money it needed to begin manufacturing products and moved into its first permanent home, in Sunnyvale. In May 1970, AMD ended its first year with 53 employees and 18 products, but no sales. The firm initially acted as an alternate source of chips, receiving products from other firms such as Fairchild and National Semiconductor and then redesigning them for greater speed and efficiency. Unlike other second-source companies, however, AMD was one of the first Silicon Valley firms to stress quality above all else, designing its chips to meet U.S. military specifications for semiconductors. At a time when the young computer industry was suffering from unreliable chips, this gave AMD an advantage. The firm began to cater to customers in the computer, telecommunications, and instrument industries who were growing quickly and who valued reliability highly enough to pay for it. AMD avoided producing chips for such inexpensive consumer items as calculators and watches, determining that these were only short-term markets. Sanders, the driving force behind AMD, also began instituting price incentives, relying heavily on salesmanship to keep the company afloat. To do this, he kept the company decentralized, breaking it into several product profit centers. As a result, engineers and designers were more aware of the business implications of their work than were their counterparts. A flamboyant leader who flaunted his love of materialism, Sanders used his personality to push his small company into the public eye, giving it a larger presence than its size merited. While attempting to motivate employees through the desire to be as rich as he was becoming, Sanders stressed respect for those low on the company's totem pole. He threw extravagant Christmas parties for everyone in the company and one year held a raffle, awarding $12,000 a year for 20 years to the winning employee--and showed up with a camera crew to record the prize delivery. These practices contrasted markedly with those of AMD's more conservative competitors, including Intel and National Semiconductor, and quickly gave the firm an aggressive reputation. AMD's second five years gave the world a taste of the company's most enduring