AMD to cuts up to 30 percent of its work force..

[tajoh111]

http://allthingsd.com/20121012/exclu.../?mod=atdtweet

"According to sources familiar with the company’s plans, (they asked not to be identified), AMD will announce next week that it will cut between 20 percent and 30 percent of its employees, which, given AMD’s headcount of about 11,700 11,100 workers, would amount to between 2,200 2,300 and 3,300 3,500 jobs.

The cuts, the sources said, will affect employees involved in engineering and sales, groups of employees that have been spared in previous rounds of cuts. Additionally, these people, who are familiar with the company’s operations, suggest that the cuts will be deep enough as to indicate that AMD may be forced to scale back some of its product offerings"

Hope this isn't true. Such a huge amount of employees. This combined with the revenue fall off. This could be the end of AMD

Scary scary stuff this friday.

Sounds like AMD is downsizing and is giving up on competing.

Thought this topic deserved its own thread because 20-30 percent of AMD's workforce is pretty huge.

Sounds like we have another person confirming this news.

AMD's layoffs target engineering.

http://semiaccurate.com/2012/10/12/a...t-engineering/



Charlie is reporting a 30% cut in engineers. The Markham branch which is responsible for the GPU portion.

[god_43]

bull. not going to happen.

[tajoh111]

bull. not going to happen.

Charlie has usually given the benefit of the doubt when it comes to AMD. Typically bad new about AMD coming from him is usually true.

[highoctane]

I would say the writing was on the wall between the reported soft demand for pc's right now along with the resignations of a number of high ranking executives and management.

When you see so much of the management in a relatively short period of time abandon ship seeking higher ground you kinda get a feeling the ship is loosing buoyancy.

I don't see AMD going anywhere anytime soon but lets hope the folks left can get things heading in a sustainable direction for the long term.

[Greg83]

good and become more competitive, stop financing the over priced employees. The fabs are global foundries nows.
And setup the AI like intel to design new processors and you need 0 engineers !
just make sure you pay that AI fairly and build it a body, else eventually it will dispose of ya

[xVeinx]

Actually, it appears there will be a significant hit to engineering in graphics and certain x86 skus. Expect to see focus placed on mobile, with desktop (minus server) and discrete graphics placed on the back-burner. Outsourcing can only accomplish so much, especially when your company is a design house. My guess is they are trimming 'fat' to entertain buyout offers.

EDIT: This affects not only AMD processors, but graphics as well. The world of computing could see a big shift if only two companies remain to drive innovation. This isn't to say that there aren't brilliant engineers and scientists at both Intel and Nvidia, but executives will make visionary choices on how technology should progress. Having multiple paths is a good thing.

[tajoh111]

How many engineers are working for AMD graphic divison. Considering they are laying off 30% of its engineers? Does this mean they are closing down the AMD graphic division in Markham Ontario. Man that makes me sick.

The only division of the company that has carried their own weight is being laid off. Its really sad to see.

Dammit. AMD should have left ATI technologies alone and focused on making a better CPU. They spread their resources so thin and made everything worse for both companies.

The direction Rory Read has taken is so bleak and so sad this year

[xVeinx]

How many engineers are working for AMD graphic divison. Considering they are laying off 30% of its engineers? Does this mean they are closing down the AMD graphic division in Markham Ontario. Man that makes me sick.

The only division of the company that has carried their own weight is being laid off. Its really sad to see.

Dammit. AMD should have left ATI technologies alone and focused on making a better CPU. They spread their resources so thin and made everything worse for both companies.

The direction Rory Read has taken is so bleak and so sad this year

That's the rumor, yes.

[tajoh111]

They should just sell the division with a cross licensing agreement. Just shutting it down seems like such a waste of talent. If this is like Charlie is saying and a matter of ego's and disliking the Canadian branch, some one needs to get their ass kicked.

AMD/ATI technologies could easily get a buyer. Easily.

[god_43]

i remember reading not too long ago that amd has a lot of managers and bureaucracy that stop a lot of innovation? i think that is where most if not all the cuts would happen (if they were to happen at all). lol if they have 30% worth of bureaucracy....that could explain a lot.

[Sparky]

Given the graphics division is what seems to be doing its job the best I would doubt they'd cut the guys who actually are doing their job right... but then, there is such thing as stupidity.

[gallag]

bull. not going to happen.

i remember reading not too long ago that amd has a lot of managers and bureaucracy that stop a lot of innovation? i think that is where most if not all the cuts would happen (if they were to happen at all). lol if they have 30% worth of bureaucracy....that could explain a lot.

Are you serious?

[SKYMTL]

Really very sad if true.

[Rollo]

Really very sad if true.

As Charlie is funded by ATi/AMD, if he says Markham ATi is closing up shop, it's more than likely true.

SkyMTL, are you old enough to remember waiting for the Computer Gaming World gaming card edition to come out every year to see the latest parts from NVIDIA, ATi, PowerVR, Rendition, Matrox, S3, Tseng, Number 9, and 3DFX?

The golden age of computer gaming.

[Evantaur]

if this is true then

but instead of wall i'll be using my keyboard and motion will be vertical not horizontal

[M.Beier]

Damn... I fear this is true, and Charlie is usually right...

I actually thought AMD graphics cards were doing extremely well..... While faildozer sure hurt business..... Oh and didnt it fail because of cutting on engineers? Makes perfect sense to solve their issues by repeating history!

[Rollo]

Damn... I fear this is true, and Charlie is usually right...

I actually thought AMD graphics cards were doing extremely well..... While faildozer sure hurt business..... Oh and didnt it fail because of cutting on engineers? Makes perfect sense to solve their issues by repeating history!

AMD cards aren't "doing extremely well".

Going by the STEAM survey, the GTX670 sold more than the 7970 and 7950 combined.

That doesn't really matter though. What you need to remember is that ATi is a much smaller company that AMD bought. They never had the revenue to support AMD, they flipflop back and forth losing or making relatively small amounts of money. Even when their tech is good, they don't have the mindshare NV has and as such are always competing on price.

AMD can't survive on ATi having half the gaming market, AMD needs higher sales and margins on their primary line, CPUs.

The Bulldozer sort of put the last nail in that coffin. Selling Snapdragon, good tech in the biggest emerging market was their other huge blunder.

[highoctane]

Oh and didnt it fail because of cutting on engineers? Makes perfect sense to solve their issues by repeating history!

Cutting engineers doesn't set one up for failure, its a failure to actually engineer a product that does not generate enough revenue.

The company with the most engineers isn't going to be the most successful, the company that actually manages to engineer a product that leads to high demand will be successful.

Without the right direction an army of engineers isn't going to make a company successful.

You gotta have sales to be successful, you can have the most kick butt product in your eyes but if nobody is interested in buying you might as well engineered a fancy rock.

[TurboDiv]

I really don't like the sound of all this. Monopolizing the PC market with only 1 huge player is not good for us the consumers. With no major competition Intel will begin to explore the limits of the consumer and how much they are willing to pay for the extra performance gain. Strictly economically, this is a bad scenario for all of us.

[Aberration]

Good. This is what its going to take unfortunately.

[SKYMTL]

Good. This is what its going to take unfortunately.

I don't get your meaning. NOTHING about this is good.

[Cold Fussion]

I really don't like the sound of all this. Monopolizing the PC market with only 1 huge player is not good for us the consumers. With no major competition Intel will begin to explore the limits of the consumer and how much they are willing to pay for the extra performance gain. Strictly economically, this is a bad scenario for all of us.

If it's only Intel then surely all eyes will be upon them, especially in the EU?

[kl0012]

I really don't like the sound of all this. Monopolizing the PC market with only 1 huge player is not good for us the consumers. With no major competition Intel will begin to explore the limits of the consumer and how much they are willing to pay for the extra performance gain. Strictly economically, this is a bad scenario for all of us.

A lot of companies are trying now to enter PC/Notebook market with low performance but also low cost/low power ARM designs. This is the real threat for Intel. To battle it Intel will need to keep cpu prices down even without AMD.

[Greg83]

the good part is, intel has replaced the engineers designing the CPU's with an AI that does the job better then the whole team since c2d. The first
If amd cannot replace the whole team of engineers of its cpu's with an AI like intel has done, maybe it can replace the whole team of engineers with an AI for the GPU side , which is "simpler" in nature, then all these application code optimizations going into the cpu's

making room for software engineers to make use of these parallel processing hardware.

problem is minimum wages. can you afford to forever pay more and more for the same guys , getting lazier and lazier thinking they're worth more and more, w/o putting in the time and effort of knowing more and more and more. While needing to remain competitive and drive down prices and costs. profits means nothing but to the "investors" hoping to live like kings in their retirements, due to RRSP's, and that never happens, they cash out, costs of living doubles.

no you need automated systems and people willing to make them, even when it means their job is done after.

[TurboDiv]

A lot of companies are trying now to enter PC/Notebook market with low performance but also low cost/low power ARM designs. This is the real threat for Intel. To battle it Intel will need to keep cpu prices down even without AMD.

I think that is very optimistic, especially in a cut throat market like this (im thinking PC specifically, ARM is a different beer). One of the characteristics of such a monopoly(assumed for now) is that there will be what is called "high barriers to entry" into the monopolized market. When you monopolize, you have economies of scale that will help you reduce cost of production since you service a large portion(more like all of it) of the market. So if you are a small company trying to enter the market, you are faced with MEGA HIGH initial costs(R&D, fabs, machinery) along with high cost of production - at the same time Intel(in our example) can reduce the price a little and your little company will be dead in a matter of months. All this prevents entry and hinders technological progress. They will be dragging their designs as long as they want with minimal performance gains and we will all be suffering. That is why when i read AMD losing/dropping from a certain market it pains me because i know its almost impossible to enter the given market by other players.