Processor battle heats up
The Worcester area may see a benefit from the on-going battle between AMD and Intel to occupy the top spot as the world’s largest chipmaker.
Late last month, AMD Inc. in Sunnyvale, CA announced that it would buy ATI, an Ontario, Canada company that specializes in building the electronic systems for 3D graphics. After the close of the $5.4 billion transaction, expected in mid-October, the combined company will have somewhere in the vicinity of 15,000 employees worldwide – including the roughly 225 engineers and support staff at ATI Research in Marlboro.Chris Evenden, director of media relations for ATI, says that the likelihood of layoffs from the transaction is probably very low. Conversely, the added capital and momentum boost to ATI may end up spurring hiring, although admitting that was highly speculative.
"There’s very little overlap between AMD and ATI," Evenden says. "That’s the reason for the purchase." Any announcements of hirings or layoffs from the combined AMD will not happen until at least after the close, he says. ATI employs some 2,500 engineers spread throughout a number of sites globally. ATI Research helped spearhead the development of the graphics technology used in Microsoft’s XBOX 360, released last year.
Pentium successor debuts
But less than a week after the announcement, Intel Corp. fired back with the release of a new line of 10 processors – called the Core2 Duo and Core 2 Extreme – that promise to increase processor speeds by 40 percent and reduce power consumption by the same factor. The move is being hailed as the biggest leap forward in processor technology since the Pentium was introduced in 1993.
Intel Massachusetts in Hudson will be one of several major suppliers of the chipsets for the Core 2 processors, as well as several other lines of Intel processors. Chipsets, which connect processors with a motherboard, are akin to transmissions on cars, which connect the engine to the wheels to make driving possible, says spokesman Patrick G. Ward.
The ramp-up for the Core 2 launch was the motive behind Intel’s investment of roughly $172 million into the Hudson facility and hiring more than 300 people, he says. That brought the total number of employees to roughly 2,500 in the 1.3 million square feet of lab and manufacturing space.
The processor platform appears to carry the potential to reinvigorate Intel, which has lost ground to AMD in the chip war over the last several years. Intel already has more than 550 customer system designs underway – the most in its history, according to the company.
At least in the short term, Central Massachusetts is already feeling the benefits of that competition.
Kenneth J. St. Onge can be reached at kstonge@wbjournal.com
WBJ Web Partners
Most Recent
Most Recent
0 Comments