News - AMD makes a $36 million loss in its second quarter

[keithwalton]

I kind of agree with you on this - I honestly can't see how AMD can, short of major screwup, make a loss given the console revenue.

As to the splitting of Intel and NVidia - maybe it'd be a good thing for the market if Intel was split up.

Talking to someone at the weekend and they were pointing out that the Russians are eager to get some chip tech, and the People's Republic (China) is also on a tech-grab and has deep pockets. The comment about AMD being broken up was purely a "thought experiment", I can't see it happening for a variety of reasons.

It's quite easy to workout.

AMD don't actually make the chips for the consoles GloFo do.
AMD probably just tack on a license fee on every soc sold and they probably got an upfront lump for doing the design work.

Technically they can't make a loss on the chips as the overstock etc isn't there but desperate to get the design win they may only make a very small amount per chip which isn't enough to offset the rest of the company.

But if they're still making a loss during the period of peak sales then they are in trouble as console revenue is only going to go down from here and amd have no more assets left to sell they don't even own there hq anymore they sold it and are renting it back.

Microsoft / Sony will have little interest in keeping amd alive either since GloFo will keep on churning out the chips without them they just wont have a royalty fee to pay.
The only loss would be from a lack of die shrinks

[GuidoLS]

If AMD were to die off tomorrow (which I am in no way advocating), the only advantage Intel would hold, as far as a monopoly went, would be in the x86 processor market. There are plenty of ARM manufacturers, including Nvidia... and Samsung... and another 498 licensees... and Intel and Nvidia would still be competing with each other in the video department, with, again, multiple smaller outfits that operate outside of, or on the fringes of, the PC industry... SIS, Qualcomm, ARM, Matrox (whose S3 division is an high end competitor on the productivity side of the market)..

No - there would be no real monopoly, except for one architecture - and that's because nobody has built anything to take on, head on, the x86 chips. Even Apple dumped Motorola...