Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. is ranked as the as the world’s second largest PC chipmaker with a market share of just 17%, far behind Intel Corp. with 81% of the market (Buckman and Williams 2001, 1). However, in 2000 AMD’s sales jumped 63% to $4.6 billion, producing $983 million in net income and its first profitable year since 1995 (Streetwalker 2001, 1).

AMD owns engineering, manufacturing, warehousing and administrative facilities where it produces not only PC chips but also microprocessors, memory circuits, logic circuits, flash memory devices, telecommunication products and embedded processors (Moody’s 2000, 2520). The company’s headquarters and research and development site are located in Sunnyvale, CA, while the wafer manufacturing plants are located in Austin, TX and Dresden, Germany. The test and assembly facilities are located in Bangko

The environmental policy is an important part of AMD’s EHS program performance. The firm focuses on multimedia pollution prevention and resource conservation. In the last couple of years the firm has not only reduced the amount of hazardous waste generation, electricity use and water consumption but also has enhanced a successful reuse and recycling program. To illustrate, in 1999, at the Dresden factory, its own energy center was able to generate more than 100% of the power the factory consumed. At the same time, the Dresden water recycling plant recycled 20% of the consumed water (AMD 1999, 10).

Because of these and many other environmental accomplishments, AMD’s local sites have received several awards. The state of California has awarded AMD headquarters for its commitment to solid waste reduction and recycling programs for five consecutive years. The city of Austin, TX awarded AMD for its excellent compliance with wastewater treatment regulations.

AMD, like many technological multinational enterprises (MNE), prefers to locate its factories and assembly plants in technology clusters in stable and democratic countries. However, AMD knows that East Asia is one of the best places for setting up factories because of cheap wages, stable countries, proximity to suppliers and potentially large markets. In fact, six out of AMD’s nine facilities are located in East Asia and employ approximately 5,600 people.

AMD and Fujitsu Ltd. venture, FASB, which includes joint technological development and production of flash memory for cellular handsets, is one way to diversify. Together AMD and Fujitsu have 30% market share of the flash memories sold for cell phones. However, in the short-term FASB will not be able to supply enough flash cards to get a larger percentage of the handset market because of capacity limitations. Therefore, in the year 2000 Fujitsu converted several of its own plants to serve strictly as factories for the joint venture. FASB is also pushing as hard as it can to begin production in its new mega plant in Japan, if possible before June 2001. The main competitor in this market is again Intel, which has about 60% of the market share, so another price war may soon begin (Dum 2000, 2).

Some topics in this essay:
Duron AMD’s, AMD EHS, AMD’s EHS, Dresden Germany, East Asia, AMD Intel, AMD’s Athlon, HEALTH POLICY, Buckman Williams, Intel AMD, 2001 1, market share, local sites, amd 1999, ehs program, pentium iv, 2001 2, safety health policy, · amd, joint venture, safety health, dum 2000 2, intel’s pentium iv, konicki 2001 2, 3 collaborative efforts,