Bad bumps? A U.K. tech site is alleging that the latest Apple MacBook Pros contain Nvidia graphics chips with the same "bad bumps" problem that Nvidia addressed this summer and said was rectified.

Nvidia said in a phone interview on Tuesday that this is dead wrong.

First a little background. Nvidia issued a statement July 2 saying it would take a charge of up to $200 million to cover repairs due to a "weak die/packaging material set in certain versions of its previous generation GPU and MCP products used in notebook systems."

Both Hewlett-Packard … Read more

Advanced Micro Devices will reduce its stake in the manufacturing operations it spun off in October, as it adjusts to repercussions of the financial crisis.

This follows a fourth-quarter warning earlier this month when the chipmaker revised its revenue estimate downward.

And like the shares of many companies, AMD's stock price has been in a free fall. Dropping from over $7 back in June to $2.10 on Monday.

Monday's action revolves around Abu Dhabi-based Mubadala Development and the Advanced Technology Investment Company (ATIC)--which Mubadala backs.

ATIC has equal voting rights with AMD in the newly formed … Read more

Let bygones be bygones. That's what Advanced Micro Devices is hoping for with the roll-out of its first 45-nanometer processor Thursday.

(AMD also announced its upcoming 45-nanometer "Phenom II X4" desktop technology. See below.)

The No. 2 PC processor supplier will make the case that Shanghai is not Barcelona. The latter chip--AMD's first quad-core processor--was rolled out in September 2007 to great fanfare but then faced prolonged delays. This gave Intel an opportunity to regain ground it had lost to AMD in the server chip market. (AMD lost more than five percentage points to Intel in … Read more

IBM is now offering 45-nanometer chipmaking "foundry" services based on its silicon-on-insulator technology.

Foundries have become a big business in the chip industry. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the largest foundry in the world, builds chips for Advanced Micro Devices and Nvidia. AMD announced in October that it was spinning off its manufacturing operations into a foundry.

Most of the advanced manufacturing technology offered to date at foundries has been based on a 65-nanometer process. Typically, the smaller the chip geometries, the faster or more power-efficient the chips are.

On Monday, IBM said that 45-nanometer (nm) silicon-on-insulator (SOI) foundry services … Read more

Toshiba and SanDisk announced Monday that their joint flash memory-manufacturing ventures are being restructured. As a result, Toshiba will gain a larger ownership stake, while SanDisk will reduce costs.

SanDisk said it has entered a nonbinding memorandum of understanding with Toshiba to sell approximately 30 percent of the current manufacturing capacity of the parties' joint ventures to Toshiba. "The move will significantly reduce SanDisk's capital spending, further strengthen its balance sheet, and reduce NAND flash memory production commitments," the company said.

SanDisk said it expects to receive cash and reduce equipment lease obligations by approximately $1 billion … Read more

Toshiba is in talks to buy SanDisk's chipmaking facilities, according to Japan-based reports.

Currently, Toshiba and SanDisk jointly own flash memory manufacturing facilities in Mie Prefecture, Japan.

SanDisk is the largest supplier of retail flash drives in the U.S.

Toshiba has started negotiations to buy SanDisk's portion of the facilities, according to Nikkei. The newspaper said this is in response to Samsung's bid to buy SanDisk that was disclosed last month.

Toshiba and SanDisk have two joint ventures that manufacture NAND flash memory. SanDisk has a 49.9 percent interest in each of the ventures and … Read more

Advanced Micro Devices talked more about options for reducing its participation in a new manufacturing venture during its third-quarter earnings call on Thursday. The chipmaker also offered more details on conversion to 45-nanometer processors.

Earlier this month, AMD announced that it was splitting into two companies: one for designing chips (AMD), the other for manufacturing them (The Foundry Company). The latter company will be owned approximately 56 percent by Advanced Technology Investment Co. (ATIC) and 44 percent by AMD.

During the conference call, AMD Chief Financial Officer Bob Rivet responded to a question from an analyst about an "exit … Read more

Advanced Micro Devices appears to have found an alternative to going fabless.

The dramatic announcement by AMD Tuesday, which focuses on a new entity known for now as The Foundry Company, shows that there is another way to restructure that doesn't entail completely jettisoning manufacturing operations--referred to in the semiconductor industry as fabs or fabrication facilities.

"Real men have fabs." This quote attributed to former AMD CEO and Chairman Jerry Sanders has some import here. Though fabless concerns, such as Nvidia, have been held up as lean, mean chip-supplying machines that don't have the burden of … Read more

AMD said Monday it is set to roll out its next-generation "Shanghai" chip--minus the mistakes of the last generation.

The No. 2 processor maker wants to make one thing crystal clear: Shanghai is not Barcelona. The latter chip was rolled out in September 2007 to great fanfare only to be delayed a whopping eight months (or more, depending how the delay is calculated) due to production glitches and bugs. The chip was also hampered by speed (core clock frequency) limitations. This gave Intel an opportunity to regain ground it had lost to AMD in the server chip market.

"We had some mis-starts in getting Barcelona to market and wanted to bring as much velocity to Shanghai as possible. Learn from our mistakes and, as a company, never do that again," said Pat Patla, general manager of AMD's server and workstation chip business.

Shanghai--a quad-core product targeted at servers--will be AMD's first 45-nanometer processor. (Barcelona is 65-nanometer.) Typically, the smaller the geometries, the faster and more power efficient the chip. Intel has been shipping 45-nanometer processors since last year and these processors now make up most of Intel's offerings.

AMD needs Shanghai to succeed. It is reeling from a string of losses and is on the verge of announcing a major restructuring. "To bring it back to profitability the execution of the server product line is absolutely critical," said Ashok Kumar, an analyst at investment bank Collins Stewart. "That is really their only profit pool."… Read more