AMD is one that my tech savvy husband has been talking about for months. I never thought Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) would become “cool” again. But things seem to be changing. The good news is that AMD is so cheap right now, that even those of you who didn’t rank well at our Financial Assessment could get hands on a good 100+ shares of it right now. So without further ado, lets conduct a 360 Invest Diva Diamond analysis on this baby.
1- AMD’s History
Only second to Intel, AMD is the second largest semiconductor company that develops two main things: CPUs (Central Processing Units) and GPUs (Graphics Processing Unit). These are two highly geeky computer processors.
Since AMD has two main products, it also has two main market competitors: Intel and NVIDIA.
AMD vs. Intel — CPU manufacturing
Founders of Intel and AMD all worked for the same company back in 1969; Fairchild Semiconductor. After some weird relationships and competition throughout the years, AMD finally started to kick Intel’s butt in 2003 with their ‘Hammer’ processors which let computer makers build servers that could handle complex business tasks. That is when the AMD started to rise. AMD’s share price hit a post tech-bust high of $40.54 in late 2006.
In January of 2006 Intel began rolling out what would become a devastating response. Its ‘Core’ line of processors, designed by an Israel-based team sparked panic at AMD, and kicked its butt back. Big time.
Intel continues to be the champ in the CPU field to this day.
AMD vs. NVIDIA — GPU manufacturing
In 2006 AMD’s head got big, as they were crushing Intel. So they decide to expand their manufacturing to GPUs. They bought ATI, a highly talented team of GPU developers in 2006 for $5.4 billion. That is when AMD’s competition against NVIDIA began. But it also marks when AMD lost its focus, and its products were not “butt-kicking” anymore.
