AMD confirms ATI acquisition

BWX

Source: The Inquirer
_________________

AMD CONFIRMED its acquisition of ATI this morning, three days after the
INQUIRER let the cat out of the bag.
While we doubted the chip-maker could afford to buy out the Canadian graphics chip firm, it turns out CEO Hector Ruiz went cap in hand to his bankers and borrowed a cool $2.5 billion.

Ruiz crowed the deal would "reinvent our industry," as he appeared in New York with ATI CEO Dave Orton. At 4.30AM? No wonder Dave Orton looks a bit tired.

AMD agreed to acquire all of the outstanding common shares of ATI for a combination of $4.2 billion in cash and 57 million shares of AMD common stock, based on the number of shares of ATI common stock outstanding on July 21, 2006.

The total comes to $5.4 billion.

AMD said the deal was 'unanimously approved' by the board of directors of each company, but it is still subject to ATI shareholder approval

Sonata

I like the paragraph from the Inquirer article before it about AMD needing to buy ATI to survive "The other option is to buy a team of engineers that produce world-class products, are battle tested, and have a track record of producing product on the same yearly beat Intel is aiming for. There are two of these in existence, ATI and Nvidia. Nvidia is too expensive, and has a culture that would mix with AMD like sand and Vaseline. That leaves ATI, undervalued and just as good."

I hope the ATI shareholders approve of the merger, and that it in turn benefits us consumers with more advanced tech that we just can't live without.

BWX

Their stock isn't looking good...

Dyre Straits

I know there's a lot left to be seen as to what it's going to become. But, I'm a little less enthusiastic about this merger. I'm not so sure I like the idea of any CPU maker owning the video card company. Doesn't matter which ones are involved. It just seems that it's going to be a bit more difficult for ATI to be unbiased in its support of Intel...which I'm more inclined to use than AMD. Maybe that clouds my own judgment, but, I'm trying to be unbiased.

YAYitsAndrew

now all they need to do is team with asus and i'll never need another company

BWX

in a related story...
Intel pulls ATI bus license





In one of the articles I read it said that GFX GPU's are going to be a thing of the past.. and that these crazy mini-core CPU's are going to be fast enough that we won't need gfx cards.. Don't know if that's true or not but it is interesting.

(here it is)

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=33219


That's nuts.

GNetX

They're losing the ATI name too - you'll be buying AMD-powered graphics cards soon! (quote from the AMD web site: "The combined company will operate as AMD").

My biggest concern is that ATI will head down a road of producing graphics cards optimised for AMD platforms, when the current clear winner in the CPU field is the Intel Core 2 Duo platform. Though upcoming products such as the R600 from ATI are well underway before this merger, the next get of GPUs from ATI might tell a different tale. Also, ATI has apparently just lost the licensing to build chipsets for the Intel platform so the likes of the x3200, which looks like a killer Conroe chipset from what I've read, will likely be the last.

We'll have to see how it pans out, but I hope that ATI will continue to produce kick-ass GPUs and not be tied to just AMD platforms. Unlikely, but I can still hope.

pepiman

I hope everything works out for my little canadian company... teamming up with germans can't hurt right? :P

I'm glad AMD cut their cpu prices down by like 50% ..... maybe they'll make ATI's gpu's drop a bit too so more people can afford nice cards............

jkayca2

Great More Canadian technology heading south.

Iroth

Canadians have technology?

franguinho

i came back from a weekend at the beach to read this late rumour last night and some article thrashing it... only to find out this morning that its official!
lol
i hope this doesn't sink AMD... personally that's the combo i've been (happily) using the past few years, AMD + ATI so i'm pretty happy if it all works out!

BWX

Funny I have also used AMD and ATI exclusively for years.. but then I just got an Nvidia card a few months ago..

I am still a fan of AMD though... always seems to have the better price performance ratio, even if you need to find that "special" CPU that happens to OC very well.. But I always find it, because they always have one (or more).

-edit-
I should add.. I'm still an ATI fan too, especially the hardware.. just not thrilled with the software lately.

edperks

I hope everything works out, I like both companys and wish them a brite future!!

Lowfat

All i see is doom in the near future for ATI (or AMD if you will). 25% of ATIs revenue was from integrated video chipsets for Intel based systems. I highly doubt AMD is going to continue to supply the chipsets to Intel. And what about crossfire on Intel-based systems? I know like less than like 5% of their sales are crossfire, however its still another section of the market they could loose.

So unless AMD doesn't touch any of the day to day operations of ATI (which I highly doubt), I can't see things going well.

Lowfat

This was taking from a post on xtremesystems.org

'Confer Call:

*ATi Intel Chipset license expires Q4 2006 (AMD/ATi want to continue relationship, subject to Intel's decision*-)
*AMD encourages competition between Nvidia/ATi on all fronts (GPUs,chipsets, Torrenza)
*Plans to encorporate different aspects of GPUs on CPU die on platform dependant basis (mobile/desktop/server)
*Plans to encorporate better ways for gpu/cpu to best share workload per given apps through complete solutions (cpu/gpu/chipset)
*ATi chips planned to be fabbed at AMD in DISTANT future. AMD in-house fab capacity currently 100% full manufac CPUs.
*R600 GPU and RD600 Intel platform both on track for release in next 6 months
*ATi will focus on GPGPU uses for torrenza

*-Intel has announced plans not to renew ATi's chipset license.
__________________'

BWX

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=33230

Merged AMD-ATI monster embarks on monopoly-busting

BEST MATES AMD and ATI held a conference call today in which the companies' biggest cheeses sought justify their new cohabitation.
..........
AMD confirmed that much of ATI's operation will be brought in-house, but AMD will remain, "committed to ATI's customers, employers and Canada," said Ruiz.
He added that he didn't expect lay-offs "in any significant numbers".
...............
The executives, Ruiz and ATI CEO Dave Orton, along with Dirk Meyer and chief AMD bean counter Bob Rivet were agreed the deal would provide better value to customers and shareholders in both companies. Bob said the merged company would be better positioned to achieve AMD's stated objective to "break the monopoly".
....................

Dave Orton said ATI would continue to deliver Intel chipsets for as long as its customer wanted it to

Matth

Though the expiry of their Intel chipset bus licence will be a spanner in the works.


A CPUGPU for the future? - other than for laptops and multimedia HTPC systems, unconvinced... unless power efficiency is radically improved, heat dissipation would pose a serious limit on doing all this in one block.

Re-inventing the "mediaGX" with current technology may be possible. Maybe low end systems could have CPU, chipset and graphics all in a single package.


Anyway, looking around and evaluating further....

It seems logical for AMD to have their own chipset (as Intel do), and just as Intel CPU's are not always run on Intel chipsets, AMDs would not necessarily be used on AMD/ATI.

It leaves the other chipset makers in a similar position for the AMD platform as they are for the Intel, competing with the processor maker's chipset, while ATI is inevitably heading out of the Intel chipset arena.

dsdsdk

ATI’s strengths in graphics, chipsets..... chipsets?

ChrisW

Think of how fast graphics could be if it was integrated on the processor. Perhaps they could dedicate a core or two just for the graphics processor. I would expect a physics processor from AMD using ATI's technology.


My next chipset was going to be from ATI anyway as I am tired of nVidia's drivers crashing my computer. What they did to ULI was the last straw.

Erroneus

Ehm yeah? They make motherboards with their own chipsets on, you know?

ChrisW

The main reason why Intel usually wins the OEM contracts is because of their chipset. Not only is it very stable, but they can get a huge discount on both the CPU and their chipset. Now AMD can do the same. If they make a Centrino equivalent, this would provide lots of competition to Intel and help reduce prices.

Judas

IMO, ATI's amd chipsets are utterly beautiful, flawless. Course some Motherboard manufacturers shouldn't rush em out. (asus namely for thier mvp~ both r200 and r3200). Although with latest bios updates, the 3200 board works excellently, better by far then anything nvidia has to offer.

I never liked AMDs own chipsets.

PandaZ3

I have not tried a ATI chipset, but that is a consideration. I have had good luck really with NFII and NF4 chipsets and I am really taken by Uli. (Wish ATI had aquired them now)


Anyway I hope it helps AMD. Were I to buy Conroe based parts for my next system it would be because of the competition Intel has recieved from AMD ...thereby causing Intel to produce a good product.

Retarp

For now this is still all speculation. ATI stockholders have yet to vote yea/nea on the merger.

Assuming the numbers stay the same, a 25% drop in revenue from no longer supporting Intel chips is going to hurt. At least they will have over a year to prepare. It looks like I'll be back on the AMD/ATI bandwagon if I can't get an ATI/AMD chipset for the Intel platform. I've used 2 motherboards with ATI chipsets and both have worked wonderfully.


Can you imagine tri, quad, or even a quintuple core processor with the graphics incorperated running at 4Ghz

The_Neon_Cowboy

it won't ausition = stock price drop, it nomarl as the comany will be dumping a
load of cash and resturctureing... meaning cost