Advanced Micro Devices or AMD was founded on May 1, 1969, by a group of former executives from Fairchild Semiconductor, including Jerry Sanders III, Ed Turney, John Carey, Sven Simonsen, Jack Gifford and three members from Gifford's team, Frank Botte, Jim Giles, and Larry Stenger.
The company began as a producer of logic chips, producing its first product the AM9300 after moving to Sunnyvale.
They started producing RAM chips in 1975, whil also bringing to market a clone of the Intel 8080 microprocessor, the AM 9080.
During this period, AMD also designed and produced more original products, among them the Am2900, Am29116, Am293xx) which were used in various minicomputer designs.
In 1977, AMD partnered with Siemens who gave a cash injection for 20% of company stock, the money giving them greater manufacturing ability, and forming the division AMC, enabling the company to enter the Microcomputer manufacturing sector.
This division was folded in 1981, after buying out the Siemen's share, and AMD switched focus to producing second source Intel x86 chips.
Investing heavily during the 1980s to counter the downturn in the chip markets, mainly due to increased competition from Japan, the company would eventualy go on to purchase the graphics processor company ATI in a multi billion dollar industry in 2006, and continues today as one of the leading processor manufacturers of the world.
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