Item 1. Business
ITEM 1. BUSINESS
Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements
The statements in this report include forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are based on current expectations and beliefs and involve numerous risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date hereof or as of the dates indicated in the statements and should not be relied upon as predictions of future events, as we cannot assure you that the events or circumstances reflected in these statements will be achieved or will occur. You can identify forward-looking statements by the use of forward-looking terminology including “believes,” “expects,” “may,” “will,” “should,” “seeks,” “intends,” “plans,” “pro forma,” “estimates,” “anticipates,” or the negative of these words and phrases, other variations of these words and phrases or comparable terminology. The forward-looking statements relate to, among other things: possible impact of future accounting rules on AMD’s consolidated financial statements; demand for AMD’s products; the growth, change and competitive landscape of the markets in which AMD participates; the expected amounts to be received by AMD under the IP licensing agreement and AMD’s expected royalty payments from future product sales of the two joint ventures AMD holds equity in with Higon Information Technology Co., Ltd. (THATIC JVs) products to be developed on the basis of such licensed IP; sales patterns of AMD’s products; international sales will continue to be a significant portion of total sales in the foreseeable future; that AMD’s cash, cash equivalents and short-term investment balances together with the availability under that certain revolving credit facility (the Revolving Credit Facility) made available to AMD and certain of its subsidiaries under the Credit Agreement, will be sufficient to fund AMD’s operations including capital expenditures over the next 12 months; AMD’s ability to obtain sufficient external financing on favorable terms, or at all; AMD’s expectation that based on the information presently known to management, the potential liability related to AMD’s current litigation will not have a material adverse effect on its financial condition, cash flows or results of operations; any amounts in addition to what has been already accrued by AMD for future remediation costs under clean-up orders will not have a material effect on our financial condition, cash flows or results of operations; we expect to file future patent applications in both the United States and abroad on significant inventions as we deem appropriate; anticipated ongoing and increased costs related to enhancing and implementing information security controls; revenue allocated to remaining performance obligations that are unsatisfied which will be recognized over the next 12 months; all unbilled accounts receivables are expected to be billed and collected within 12 months; a small number of customers will continue to account for a substantial part of AMD’s revenue in the future; and the acquisition of Xilinx, Inc. is currently expected to close by the end of calendar year 2021. For a discussion of the factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements, see “Part I, Item 1A-Risk Factors” and the “Financial Condition” section set forth in “Part II, Item 7-Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations,” or MD&A, and such other risks and uncertainties as set forth below in this report or detailed in our other Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) reports and filings. We assume no obligation to update forward-looking statements.
General
We are a global semiconductor company primarily offering:
• x86 microprocessors, as standalone devices or as incorporated into an accelerated processing unit (APU), chipsets, discrete and integrated graphics processing units (GPUs), data center and professional GPUs, and development services; and
• server and embedded processors, semi-custom System-on-Chip (SoC) products, development services and technology for game consoles.
From time to time, we may also sell or license portions of our intellectual property (IP) portfolio.
For financial information about geographic areas and for segment information with respect to revenues and operating results, refer to the information set forth in Note 14 of our consolidated financial statements.
We use a 52 or 53 week fiscal year ending on the last Saturday in December. References in this report to 2020, 2019 and 2018 refer to the fiscal year unless explicitly stated otherwise.
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Pending Acquisition
On October 26, 2020, we entered into an Agreement and Plan of Merger (the Merger Agreement) with Thrones Merger Sub, Inc., our wholly owned subsidiary (Merger Sub), and Xilinx, Inc. (Xilinx), whereby Merger Sub will merge with and into Xilinx (the Merger), with Xilinx surviving such Merger as a wholly owned subsidiary of ours. Under the Merger Agreement, at the effective time of the Merger (the Effective Time), each share of common stock of Xilinx (Xilinx Common Stock) issued and outstanding immediately prior to the Effective Time (other than treasury shares and any shares of Xilinx Common Stock held directly by us or Merger Sub) will be converted into the right to receive 1.7234 fully paid and non-assessable shares of our common stock and, if applicable, cash in lieu of fractional shares, subject to any applicable withholding. As of the signing of the Merger Agreement, the transaction was valued at $35 billion . The actual valuation of the transaction could differ significantly from the estimated amount due to movements in the price of our Common Stock, the number of shares of Xilinx common stock outstanding on the closing date of the Merger and other factors . The closing of the Merger is subject to customary conditions, including regulatory approval and approval by our stockholders and Xilinx stockholders. The transaction is currently expected to close by the end of calendar year 2021.
Additional Information
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) was incorporated under the laws of Delaware on May 1, 1969 and became a publicly held company in 1972. Our common stock is currently listed on The NASDAQ Global Select Market (NASDAQ) under the symbol “AMD”. Our mailing address and executive offices are located at 2485 Augustine Drive, Santa Clara, California 95054, and our telephone number is (408) 749-4000. The SEC website, www.sec.gov, contains reports, proxy and information statements, and other information regarding issuers that file electronically with the SEC.
References in this Annual Report on Form 10-K to “AMD,” “we,” “us,” “management,” “our” or the “Company” mean Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. and our consolidated subsidiaries.
AMD, the AMD Arrow logo, Athlon, AMD CDNA, AMD Instinct, AMD RDNA, EPYC, FirePro, FreeSync, Geode, Opteron, Radeon, Radeon Instinct, RDNA, Ryzen, Threadripper, Infinity Fabric, and combinations thereof are trademarks of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
Microsoft, Windows, DirectX and Xbox One are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. PCIe is a registered trademark of PCI-SIG Corporation. Chromebook and Stadia are trademarks of Google Inc. Linux is the registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in the United States and other countries. PlayStation is a registered trademark or trademark of Sony Interactive Entertainment, Inc. Arm is a registered trademark of ARM Limited (or its subsidiaries) in the US and/or elsewhere. Vulkan and the Vulkan logo are registered trademarks of Khronos Group Inc.
Other names are for informational purposes only and are used to identify companies and products and may be trademarks of their respective owners.
Website Access to Our SEC Filings and Corporate Governance Documents
On the Investor Relations pages of our Website, http://ir.amd.com , we post links to our filings with the SEC, our Principles of Corporate Governance, our Code of Ethics for our executive officers, all other senior finance executives and certain representatives from legal and internal audit, our Worldwide Standards of Business Conduct, which applies to our Board of Directors and all of our employees, and the charters of the Audit and Finance, Compensation and Leadership Resources, Nominating and Corporate Governance and Innovation and Technology committees of our Board of Directors. Our filings with the SEC are posted as soon as reasonably practical after they are electronically filed with, or furnished to, the SEC. You can also obtain copies of these documents by writing to us at: Corporate Secretary, AMD, 7171 Southwest Parkway, M/S B100.T, Austin, Texas 78735, or emailing us at: Corporate.Secretary@amd.com . All of these documents and filings are available free of charge.
If we make substantive amendments to our Code of Ethics or grant any waiver, including any implicit waiver, to our principal executive officer, principal financial officer, principal accounting officer, controller or persons performing similar functions, we intend to disclose the nature of such amendment or waiver on our Website.
The information contained on our Website is not incorporated by reference in, or considered to be a part of, this report.
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Our Industry
We are a global semiconductor company. Semiconductors are components used in a variety of electronic products and systems. An integrated circuit (IC) is a semiconductor device that consists of many interconnected transistors on a single chip. Since the invention of the transistor in 1948, improvements in IC process and design technologies have led to the development of smaller, more complex and more reliable ICs at a lower cost-per-function.
Computing and Graphics
Computing and Graphics Markets
The Computing and Graphics market addresses the need for computational and visual data processing in computing devices that include personal computers, laptops / notebooks, and workstations. We service this market with our CPU, GPU, APU, system-on-chip and chipset product offerings.
Central Processing Unit (CPU) . A microprocessor is an IC that serves as the CPU of a computer. It generally consists of hundreds of millions or billions of transistors that process data in a serial fashion and control other devices in the system, acting as the “brain” of the computer. The performance of a microprocessor is a critical factor impacting the performance of computing and entertainment platforms, such as desktop PCs, notebooks and workstations. The principal elements used to measure CPU performance are work-per-cycle (or how many instructions are executed per cycle), clock speed (representing the rate at which a CPU’s internal logic operates, measured in units of gigahertz, or billions of cycles per second) and power consumption. Other factors impacting microprocessor performance include the process technology used in its manufacture, the number and type of cores, the ability of the cores to process multi-thread or process multiple instructions simultaneously, the bit size of its instruction set, memory size and data access speed.
Developments in IC design and manufacturing process technologies have resulted in significant advances in microprocessor performance. Since businesses and consumers require greater performance from their computer systems due to the growth of digital data and increasingly sophisticated software applications, multi-core microprocessors offer enhanced overall system performance and efficiency because computing tasks can be spread across two or more processing cores, each of which can execute a task at full speed. Multi-core microprocessors can simultaneously increase performance of a computer system without greatly increasing the total amount of power consumed and the total amount of heat emitted. Businesses and consumers also require computer systems with improved power management technology, which helps them to reduce the power consumption of their computer systems, enables smaller and more portable form factors, and can lower the total cost of ownership.
Graphics Processing Unit (GPU). A GPU is a programmable logic chip that helps render images, animations and video and is increasingly being used to handle general computing tasks. GPUs are located in plug-in cards, as a discrete processor or in a chip on the motherboard, or in the same chip as the CPU as part of an accelerated processing unit (APU) or System-on-Chip (SoC). GPUs on stand-alone cards or discrete GPUs on the motherboard typically access their own memory, while GPUs in the chipset or CPU chip share main memory with the CPU.
GPUs perform parallel operations on data to render images for a video display and are essential to presenting computer generated images on that display, decoding and rendering animations and displaying video. The more sophisticated the GPU, the higher the resolution and the faster and smoother moving objects can be displayed on a video display or in a virtual environment (e.g. virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR)).
In addition to graphics processing, GPUs are used to perform parallel operations on multiple sets of data and are increasingly used to perform vector processing for non-graphics applications that require repetitive computations such as high-performance computing (HPC), deep learning, artificial and machine intelligence, blockchain and various other applications (e.g., cryptocurrency mining and autonomous driving).
Accelerated Processing Unit (APU). Consumers increasingly demand computing devices with improved end-user experience, system performance and energy efficiency. Consumers also continue to demand thinner and lighter mobile devices, with better performance and longer battery life. We believe that a computing architecture that optimizes the use of its components can provide these improvements.
An APU is a processing unit that integrates a CPU and a GPU onto one chip (or one piece of silicon), along with, in some cases, other special-purpose components. This integration enhances system performance by “offloading” selected tasks to the best-suited component (i.e. the CPU or the GPU) to optimize component use, increasing the
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speed of data flow between the CPU and GPU through shared memory and allowing the GPU to function as both a graphics engine and an application accelerator. Having the CPU and GPU on the same chip also typically improves energy efficiency by, for example, eliminating connections between discrete chips.
System-on-Chip (SoC) . An SoC is a type of IC with a CPU, GPU and other components, such as a memory controller and peripheral management, comprising a complete computing system on a single chip. By combining all of these elements as an SoC, system performance and energy efficiency are improved, similar to an APU.
Chipset. A chipset is a generic term referring to a device or a collection of devices that allow the microprocessor to connect to a wider range of peripheral devices in the system (such as storage, optical drives, and Universal Serial Bus (USB) peripherals). Chipsets can perform essential logic functions and operate in concert with the microprocessor to manage system control and power management functions of all the devices in the system. Chipsets are most often found in larger form factor systems, typically desktop systems or larger notebook platforms, which require the expanded peripheral selection that is enabled by the chipset. Typical notebook platforms and small form factor desktop platforms usually do not utilize a chipset and instead rely on the capabilities of the APU to connect to all the required devices on the platform.
Our Computing and Graphics Products
Our microprocessors are incorporated into computing platforms, which are a collection of technologies that are designed to work together to provide a more complete computing solution. We believe that integrated, balanced computing platforms consisting of microprocessors, chipsets (either as discrete devices or integrated into an SoC) and GPUs (either as discrete GPUs or integrated into an APU or SoC) that work together at the system level bring end users improved system stability, increased performance and enhanced power efficiency. In addition, we believe our customers also benefit from an all-AMD platform (consisting of an APU or CPU, a discrete GPU, and a chipset when needed), as we are able to optimize interoperability, provide our customers a single point of contact for the key platform components and enable them to bring the platforms to market quickly in a variety of PC and server system form factors.
We currently base our microprocessors and chipsets on the x86 instruction set architecture and the AMD Infinity Fabric™, which connects an on-chip memory controller and input/output (I/O) channels directly to one or more microprocessor cores. We typically integrate two or more processor cores onto a single die, and each core has its own dedicated cache, which is memory that is located on the semiconductor die, permitting quick access to frequently used data and instructions. Some of our microprocessors have additional levels of cache such as L2, or second-level cache, and L3, or third-level cache, to enable fast data access and high-performance.
We focus on continually improving the energy efficiency of our products through our design principles and innovations in power management technology. To that end, we offer CPUs, GPUs, APUs, SoCs and chipsets with multiple low power states that are designed to utilize lower clock speeds and voltages to reduce processor power consumption during active and idle times. The use of intelligent, dynamic power management is designed to create lower energy use by allowing compute applications to be completed quickly and efficiently, enabling a return to the ultra-low power idle state.
Desktop. Our microprocessors for desktop platforms currently include the AMD Ryzen™ series processors and AMD Athlon™ processors. In April 2020, we expanded our 3rd Gen AMD Ryzen desktop processor family by adding AMD Ryzen 3 3100 and AMD Ryzen 3 3300X processors with “Zen 2” core architecture to business users, gamers and creators. In June 2020, we announced further additions to the 3rd Gen AMD Ryzen desktop processor family, by introducing the AMD Ryzen 9 3900XT, AMD Ryzen 7 3800XT and AMD Ryzen 5 3600XT desktop processors designed for the enthusiast market. In July 2020, we introduced for the consumer market, the AMD Ryzen 4000 series desktop processors and the AMD Athlon 3000 series desktop processors with built-in Radeon™ graphics. The AMD Ryzen 4000 G-Series desktop processors offer power efficiency for consumers, gamers, streamers and creators and include multi-layered security features. The AMD Athlon 3000 G-Series desktop processors provide responsive performance and features for entry-level PCs using “Zen” core architecture. In October 2020, we introduced the AMD Ryzen 5000 Series desktop processor family powered by “Zen 3” core architecture. The AMD Ryzen 5000 Series processors have up to 16 cores and deliver across the board leadership performance for gamers and content creators.
Notebooks and 2-in-1s. We continue to invest in designing and developing high performing and low power APUs for notebook PC platforms and we offer AMD Ryzen and AMD Athlon mobile processors for the consumer and commercial markets. In January 2020, we introduced the AMD Ryzen 4000 Series Mobile Processors for ultrathin and gaming laptops designed to deliver performance and power efficiency. In September 2020, we introduced the
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first mobile AMD Ryzen and AMD Athlon processors for Chromebooks. The AMD Ryzen and Athlon 3000 C-Series mobile processors are designed to enable thinner and lighter Chromebook designs with long battery life and enhanced connectivity.
Commercial. We offer enterprise-class desktop and notebook PC solutions sold as AMD PRO Mobile and AMD PRO desktop processors with Radeon graphics for the commercial market. These solutions are designed to provide enterprise customers with the performance, security capabilities and business features such as enhanced security and manageability, platform longevity and extended image stability. In May 2020, we announced the global availability of the AMD Ryzen PRO 4000 series mobile family for commercial notebooks built with enterprise-grade AMD PRO technologies, which deliver a set of security and manageability features for Enterprise IT deployments. In July 2020, we introduced the AMD Ryzen PRO 4000 series and AMD Athlon PRO 3000 series desktop processors with built-in Radeon graphics for the commercial market. Also in July, we announced the new AMD Ryzen Threadripper™ PRO Processor family with up to 64 cores and built with enterprise grade AMD PRO technologies. Designed for professional workstations from OEMs and system integrators, AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO processors offer full spectrum compute capabilities for multi-threaded workloads and high frequency single core performance for lightly threaded workloads.
Chipsets. We offer a full suite of chipset products, including the X570 chipset which supports PCIe® 4.0 (fourth generation Peripheral Component Interconnect Express motherboard interface) designed for enthusiast desktop platforms. We also introduced the B550 chipset in April 2020 and the A520 chipset in July 2020 for socket AM4 for 3rd Gen AMD Ryzen desktop processors and 5000 processors. In addition, we continue to offer the B450 and A320 chipsets that are combined with AMD Ryzen processors for the AM4 desktop platform for the performance and affordable mainstream platforms segments. In the High-End Desktop (HEDT) and Workstation segments, we offer the TRX40 and the WRX80 chipsets, respectively, to support the 3rd generation Ryzen Threadripper and Threadripper Pro platforms offering high speed I/O and platform bandwidth.
Graphics Market
The semiconductor graphics market addresses the need for improved visual and data processing in various computing devices. Many consumers use PCs as entertainment platforms, in addition to traditional productivity and communications uses, and therefore value a richer, more visually compelling and immersive experience. As a result, visual realism and graphical display capabilities are key product differentiation elements among computing devices. This has led to the increased creation and use of processing-intensive multimedia content for playing games, capturing media, viewing online videos, editing photos and managing digital content on computing devices. In turn, these trends have contributed to higher consumer demand for performance graphics solutions and to manufacturers designing computing devices with these capabilities. Industries that utilize computer assisted design (CAD), that develop content for media and entertainment markets and that generate professional visualizations and renderings can benefit greatly from graphics solutions optimized for the professional graphics market.
In addition to traditional graphics markets, there is a large and growing demand for accelerated computing, powered by graphics processors in markets such as high performance computing (HPC), artificial intelligence, and Cloud Visualization (Virtual Desktop Infrastructure & Cloud Gaming). Traditional HPC focused on scientific research, model simulation, and exploration is driving an increased need for computing throughput at universities and government research centers. Artificial intelligence is a rapidly growing area of machine learning and deep learning workloads. Graphics processors are used primarily in the training of machine learning models. The cloud visualization market is fueled by the trend to in work from home and thus the increased need for remote accessibility, and the shift from traditional desktop and notebook workloads to the cloud. The expansion of compute workloads on graphics processors is driving market expansion for traditional graphics silicon.
Another area of the market for graphics compute is blockchain technology, which is a decentralized digital ledger used to securely store, transmit and process sensitive and valuable data. Blockchain applications are typically performed using specially designed application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) or a general purpose CPU or GPU.
Our Graphics Products
Graphics processing is a fundamental component of almost everything we create and can be found in an APU, GPU, SoC or a combination of a discrete GPU with one of the other foregoing products working in tandem. Our customers generally use our graphics solutions to enable or increase the speed of rendering images, to help improve image resolution and color definition, and increasingly to process massive data sets for cloud and data
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center applications. We develop our graphics products for use in various computing devices and entertainment platforms, including desktop PCs, notebook PCs, 2-in-1s, All-in-Ones (AIOs), professional workstations, and the data center. With each of our graphics products, we have available drivers and supporting software packages that enable the effective use of these products under a variety of operating systems and applications. We have developed RDNA™ 2, a high performing and power efficient graphics architecture, which is the foundation for next-generation PC gaming graphics, the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series S and X consoles. Additionally, the RDNA 2 architecture supports advanced graphics features such as ray tracing, Infinity Cache and variable rate shading. Our hardware and software components are used to implement ray tracing technology to simulate the paths of light rays moving through a movie or game scene, resulting in photorealistic 3D images.
Our APUs deliver visual processing functionality for value and mainstream PCs by integrating a CPU and a GPU on a single chip, while discrete GPUs (which are also known as dGPUs) offer high-performance graphics processing across all platforms. AMD Accelerated Parallel Processing or General Purpose GPU (GPGPU) refers to a set of advanced hardware and software technologies that enable discrete AMD GPUs, working in concert with the CPU, to accelerate computational tasks beyond traditional CPU processing by utilizing the vast number of discrete GPU cores while working with the CPU to process information cooperatively. In addition, computing devices with heterogeneous computing features can run computationally-intensive tasks more efficiently, which we believe provides a superior application experience to the end user. Moreover, heterogeneous computing allows for the elevation of the GPU to the same level as the CPU for memory access, queuing, and execution.
Discrete Desktop and Notebook Graphics . Our discrete GPUs for desktop and notebook PCs support current generation application program interfaces (APIs) like DirectX® 12 Ultimate and Vulkan®, support new displays using AMD FreeSync™, AMD FreeSync Premium, and AMD FreeSync Premium Pro technologies, and are designed to support VR in PC platforms. In August 2020, we announced the availability of the new AMD Radeon Pro 5000 series GPUs for the updated 27-inch iMac bringing a wide variety of graphically intensive applications and workloads to consumer and professional users. In October 2020, we unveiled the AMD Radeon RX™ 6000 series graphics cards for enthusiast-class PC gaming experiences. The AMD Radeon RX 6000 series includes the AMD Radeon RX 6800 and Radeon RX 6800 XT graphics cards as well as the Radeon RX 6900 XT built upon the AMD RDNA 2 gaming architecture that spans from game consoles to PCs. The AMD RDNA 2 GPUs feature enhancements in the compute unit, advancements in the visual pipeline, and the introduction of a new high-speed cache called AMD Infinity Cache. These architecture enhancements enable ultra-high performance and ultra-high fidelity in the latest games. Complimenting the introduction of the new AMD RX 6000 Series graphics cards, AMD introduced AMD Smart Access Memory, which when combined with an AMD Ryzen 5000 series processor, offers an incremental performance boost in many games.
Professional Graphics. Our AMD Radeon Pro family of professional graphics products includes multi-view graphics cards and GPUs designed for integration in mobile and desktop workstations. AMD Radeon Pro graphics cards are designed for demanding use cases such as design and manufacturing for CAD, and media and entertainment for broadcast and animation pipelines. AMD Radeon Pro supports end users utilizing GPU accelerated visualization for construction, architecture and mechanical design through gaming and visualization engines on high resolution displays; Radeon VR Creator cards are also capable of supporting this functionality with VR and AR. Software drivers for AMD Radeon Pro cards are designed to deliver high stability and performance across a wide variety of software packages including those requiring professional software vendor certifications. In February 2020, we announced the AMD Radeon Pro W5500 workstation graphics card for Design & Manufacturing and Architecture, Engineering & Construction (AEC) professionals. We also announced the AMD Radeon Pro W5500M GPU designed and optimized to power next-generation, high-performance professional mobile workstations. In May 2020, we announced the AMD Radeon Pro VII workstation graphics card for broadcast and engineering professionals. In June 2020, we announced the AMD Radeon Pro 5600M mobile GPU built with 7 nanometer (nm) process technology and advanced AMD RDNA architecture for pro applications, including video editing, color grading, application development, game creation and more.
Data Center Graphics . We offer two families of products to accelerate workloads in the data center. Our visual cloud data center GPUs include a range of solutions tailored towards workloads requiring remote visualization, such as Desktop-as-a-Service, Workstation-as-a-Service and Cloud Gaming. These GPUs are designed to cover the full range of graphical application acceleration, from light desktop tasks, to workstation tasks, multi-GPU high end rendering, and cloud gaming activities. Our software solutions carry certification for a number of professional software vendor applications as well as being optimized for modern gaming titles. In December 2020 Amazon Web Services announced and made available their new “G4ad” instance, designed for graphics intensive applications such as virtual workstations, game streaming and graphics rendering. G4ad utilizes both AMD EPYC processors and the AMD Radeon Pro V520 GPU. The AMD Radeon Pro V520 is the first AMD RDNA based, 7 nm GPU
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released for cloud environments.
Our AMD Radeon Instinct™ and AMD Instinct family of GPU products are specifically designed to address growing demand for compute-oriented data center applications, including deep learning training and traditional HPC workloads such as simulation where the compute capabilities of GPUs provide exceptional flexibility and performance. Combined with our ROCm™ open software platform, our customers can deliver differentiated acceleration platforms to address the next-generation of computing challenges while minimizing power and space needs in the data center. In November 2020, we announced the AMD Instinct MI100 accelerator built on the new AMD CDNA™ architecture. The MI100 GPU is built to accelerate workloads in the scientific computing and AI markets.
Enterprise, Embedded and Semi-Custom
The Enterprise, Embedded and Semi-Custom Markets
The Enterprise, Embedded and Semi-Custom Markets address the need for computational and visual data processing in the Server, Embedded computing device, and custom designed computing device markets. We service these markets with our CPU, GPU, APU, and customized designed system-on-chips products.
Server. A server is a computer system that performs services for connected customers as part of a client-server architecture. Many servers are designed to run an application or applications often for extended periods of time with minimal human intervention. Examples of servers include cloud, web, e-mail, print and on-premise servers. These servers can run a variety of applications, including business intelligence, enterprise resource planning, customer relationship management and advanced scientific or engineering models to solve advanced computational problems in disciplines ranging from financial modeling to weather forecasting to oil and gas exploration. Servers are also used in cloud computing, which is a computing model where data, applications and services are delivered over the internet or an intranet which can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal effort. Today’s data centers require new technologies and configuration models to meet the demand driven by the growing amount of data that needs to be stored, accessed, analyzed and managed. Servers must be efficient, scalable and adaptable to meet the compute characteristics of new and changing workloads.
Embedded . Embedded products address computing needs in enterprise-class telecommunications, networking, security, storage systems and thin clients (which are computers that serve as an access device on a network). Typically, AMD embedded products are used in applications that require high to moderate levels of performance, where key features may include relatively low power, small form factor, and 24x7 operations. High-performance graphics are important in some embedded systems. Support for Linux ® , Windows ® and other operating systems as well as for increasingly sophisticated applications are also critical for some customers. Other requirements may include meeting rigid specifications for industrial temperatures, shock, vibration and reliability. The embedded market has moved from developing proprietary, custom designs to leveraging industry-standard instruction set architectures and processors as a way to help reduce costs and speed time to market.
Semi-Custom . We leverage our core IP, including our graphics and processing technologies to develop semi-custom solutions for the PC and gaming markets. In this market, semiconductor suppliers work alongside system designers and manufacturers to enhance the performance and overall user experience for semi-custom customers. We have used this type of collaborative co-development approach with many of today’s leading game console manufacturers and can also address customer needs in many other markets beyond game consoles. We leverage our existing IP to create a variety of products tailored to a specific customer’s needs, ranging from complex fully-customized SoCs to more modest adaptations and integrations of existing CPU, APU or GPU products.
Our Enterprise, Embedded and Semi-Custom Products
Server Processors. Our microprocessors for server platforms currently include the AMD EPYC™ Series processors and AMD Opteron™ X and A-Series processors. The AMD Opteron™ X3000 Series APUs are a family of fully integrated CPU, GPU and I/O designed to provide processing and graphics performance for personal and small business needs. The AMD EPYC 7001 Series of high-performance processors have up to 32 “Zen” compute cores with 2nd Gen AMD EPYC 7002 Series containing up to 64 “Zen 2” compute cores. Both are designed to support a full range of integer, floating point, memory bandwidth and I/O benchmarks and workloads. In April 2020, we announced the extension of the 2nd Gen AMD EPYC processor family with three new processors: AMD EPYC 7F32 (8 cores), AMD EPYC 7F52 (16 cores) and AMD EPYC 7F72 (24 cores). These new processors leverage up to 500 MHz of additional base frequency and large amounts of cache. AMD EPYC processors are powering cloud
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instances from leading cloud providers.
Embedded Processors . Our embedded processors are designed to support greater connectivity and security, and we believe they can be a strong driver for the high-performance bandwidth and storage requirements of enterprise and cloud infrastructure and “immersive computing” areas in the computing industry. Our products for embedded platforms include AMD Embedded EPYC CPUs, AMD Embedded V-Series APUs, CPUs and SoCs, AMD Embedded R-Series APUs, CPUs and SoCs, AMD Embedded G-Series SoC platform and AMD Embedded Radeon GPUs. In February 2020, we announced the expansion of the embedded family with two new AMD Ryzen Embedded R1000 low-power processors that provide customers with a thermal design power (TDP) range of 6 up to 10 watts. The AMD Ryzen Embedded R1000 family now includes the Ryzen Embedded R1102G and R1305G processors, designed for efficient power envelopes and giving customers the ability to create fanless systems. In November 2020, we launched the AMD Ryzen Embedded V2000 Series processor built with 7 nm process technology, up to eight “Zen 2” cores and seven AMD Radeon graphics CPU compute units, providing power efficiency and enterprise-class security features for embedded customers.
Semi-Custom . Our semi-custom products are tailored, co-developed, high-performance, customer-specific solutions based on AMD CPU, GPU and multi-media technologies. We work closely with our customers to define solutions to precisely match the requirements of the device or application. We developed the semi-custom SoC products that power both the Sony PlayStation® 4 and Sony PlayStation ® 5 as well as the Microsoft ® Xbox One X, Microsoft ® Xbox One S, Microsoft ® Xbox Series X™ and Xbox Series S™ game consoles. Microsoft and Sony launched their new consoles in November 2020.
Sales and Marketing
We sell our products through our direct sales force and through independent distributors and sales representatives in both domestic and international markets. Our sales arrangements generally operate on the basis of product forecasts provided by the particular customer, but do not typically include any commitment or requirement for minimum product purchases. We primarily use purchase orders, sales order acknowledgments and contractual agreements as evidence of our sales arrangements. Our agreements typically contain standard terms and conditions covering matters such as payment terms, warranties and indemnities for issues specific to our products.
We generally warrant that our products sold to our customers will conform to our approved specifications and be free from defects in material and workmanship under normal use and conditions for one year. We offer up to three-year limited warranties for certain product types, and sometimes provide other warranty periods based on negotiated terms with certain customers.
We market and sell our latest products under the AMD trademark. Our desktop PC microprocessor product brands are AMD Ryzen™, AMD Ryzen™ PRO, Ryzen™ Threadripper™, AMD A-Series, AMD FX™, AMD Athlon™, AMD Athlon™ PRO, and AMD Pro A-Series. Our notebook and 2-in-1s for microprocessors are AMD Ryzen™ processors with Radeon™ Vega Graphics, AMD A-Series, AMD Athlon, AMD Ryzen PRO with Radeon Vega Graphics, AMD Athlon™ PRO with Radeon Vega Graphics and AMD Pro A-Series processors. Our server brands for microprocessors are AMD EPYC™ and AMD Opteron™ processors. We also sell low-power versions of our AMD Opteron, AMD Athlon, as well as AMD Geode™, AMD Ryzen, AMD EPYC, AMD R-Series and G-Series processors as embedded processor solutions. Our product brand for the consumer graphics market is AMD Radeon graphics, and AMD Embedded Radeon graphics is our product brand for the embedded graphics market. Our product brand for professional graphics products are AMD Radeon Pro and AMD FirePro™ graphics. Our product brand for data center graphics is Radeon Instinct™ and AMD Instinct accelerators for servers. We also market and sell our chipsets under AMD trademarks.
We market our products through direct marketing and co-marketing programs. In addition, we have cooperative advertising and marketing programs with customers and third parties, including market development programs, pursuant to which we may provide product information, training, marketing materials and funds. Under our co-marketing development programs, eligible customers can use market development funds as reimbursement for advertisements and marketing programs related to our products and third-party systems integrating our products, subject to meeting defined criteria.
Customers
Our microprocessor customers consist primarily of original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), large public cloud service providers, original design manufacturers (ODMs), system integrators and independent distributors in both
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domestic and international markets. ODMs provide design and/or manufacturing services to branded and unbranded private label resellers, OEMs and system builders. Customers of our microprocessor products also include online retailers. Our graphics product customers include the foregoing as well as add-in-board manufacturers (AIBs).
Customers of our chipset products consist primarily of PC OEMs, often through ODMs or other contract manufacturers, who build the OEM motherboards, as well as desktop and server motherboard manufacturers who incorporate chipsets into their channel motherboards.
We work closely with our customers to define product features, performance and timing of new products so that the products we are developing meet our customers’ needs. We also employ application engineers to assist our customers in designing, testing and qualifying system designs that incorporate our products. We believe that our commitment to customer service and design support improves our customers’ time-to-market and fosters relationships that encourage customers to use the next generation of our products.
We also work with our customers to create differentiated products that leverage our CPU, GPU and APU technology. Certain customers pay us non-recurring engineering fees for design and development services and a purchase price for the resulting products.
No single customer accounted for more than 10% of our consolidated net revenue for the year ended December 26, 2020.
Original Equipment Manufacturers
We focus on three types of OEM partners: multi-nationals, selected regional accounts and some local system integrators, who target commercial and consumer end customers of all sizes. Large multi-nationals and regional accounts are the core of our OEM partners’ business; however, a growing focus for us is the Value Added Reseller (VAR) channel which resells OEM systems to the mid-market and the small and medium business (SMB) segments. Our OEM customers include numerous foreign and domestic manufacturers of servers and workstations, desktops, notebooks, PC motherboards and game consoles.
Third-Party Distributors
Our authorized channel distributors resell to sub-distributors and mid-sized and smaller OEMs and ODMs. Typically, distributors handle a wide variety of products, and may include those that compete with our products. Distributors typically maintain an inventory of our products. In most instances, our agreements with distributors protect their inventory of our products against price reductions and provide return rights with respect to any product that we have removed from our price book that is less than 12 months older than the manufacturing code date. In addition, some agreements with our distributors may contain standard stock rotation provisions permitting limited levels of product returns.
Add-in-Board (AIB) Manufacturers and System Integrators
We offer component-level graphics and chipset products to AIB manufacturers who in turn build and sell board-level products using our technology to system integrators (SIs), retail buyers and sub distributors. Our agreements with AIBs protect their inventory of our products against price reductions. We also sell directly to our SI customers. SIs typically sell from positions of regional or product-based strength in the market. They usually operate on short design cycles and can respond quickly with new technologies. SIs often use discrete graphics solutions as a means to differentiate their products and add value to their customers.
Competition in the Microprocessor and Chipset Market
Intel Corporation has been the market share leader for microprocessors for many years. Intel’s market share, margins and significant financial resources enable it to market its products aggressively, to target our customers and our channel partners with special incentives and to influence customers who do business with us. Intel exerts substantial influence over computer manufacturers and their channels of distribution through various brand and other marketing programs. Additionally, Intel is able to drive de facto standards and specifications for x86 microprocessors that could cause us and other companies to have delayed access to such standards. We expect Intel to continue to invest heavily in marketing, research and development, new manufacturing facilities and other technology companies.
A variety of companies provide or have developed ARM-based microprocessors and platforms. ARM-based designs
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are being used in the PC and server markets, which could lead to further growth and development of the ARM ecosystem. In 2020, Nvidia announced that it had entered into an agreement to acquire ARM Holdings. Nvidia is our principal competitor in the discrete graphics market. Our ability to compete with companies who use ARM-based solutions depends on our ability to timely design and bring to market energy-efficient, high-performing products at an attractive price point.
Competition in the Graphics Markets
In the graphics market, our competitors include suppliers of discrete graphics, embedded graphics processors and integrated graphics processor (IGP) chipsets. Intel manufactures and sells embedded graphics processors and IGP chipsets and is a dominant competitor with respect to this portion of our business. Higher unit shipments of our APUs and Intel’s integrated graphics may drive computer manufacturers to reduce the number of systems they build paired with discrete graphics components, particularly for notebooks, because they may offer satisfactory graphics performance for most mainstream PC users at a lower cost. Intel could take actions that place our discrete GPUs and IGP chipsets at a competitive disadvantage such as providing preferential access to its proprietary graphics interface or other useful information to our competitors in the graphics market or restricting access to external companies, while developing its own high-end discrete GPUs for both consumer and commercial applications.
Our principal competitor in the discrete graphics market is Nvidia and they are considered the market share leader. We believe that the growing complexity of graphics processors and the associated research and development costs represent a high and growing barrier to entry in this market.
Also, Intel has announced that it is developing their own high-end discrete GPUs.
Competition in the Enterprise, Embedded and Semi-Custom Markets
In the server market, we compete against Intel with our CPU server products and Nvidia with our GPU server products.
In the data center, our principal competitor is Nvidia as the adoption of its proprietary CUDA software platform established its market share in HPC and machine learning. Another competitor is Intel as it builds products for acceleration in the data center, such as Intel Xe or Habana AI processors. Other competitors include numerous deep learning accelerator companies, consisting mostly of early to late stage start-ups. Large cloud service providers have also shown interest in building their own products to accelerate AI.
We are the market share leader in semi-custom game console products, where graphics performance is critical, and where we compete primarily against Nvidia.
Research and Development
We focus our research and development activities on improving product performance and enhancing product design. Our main area of focus is on delivering the next generation of CPU and GPU IP, and designing that IP into our SoCs for our next generation of products, with, in each case, improved system performance and performance-per-watt characteristics. For example, we are focusing on improving the battery life of our APU products for notebooks and the performance and power efficiency of our discrete GPUs and our microprocessors for servers. Another important area of focus is on HPC. HPC has traditionally been synonymous with scientific computing and supercomputers, but we are seeing a blurring of boundaries between HPC and machine learning along with high-performance CPU and GPU deployments going into workstations and cloud computing data centers as well as supercomputers. We are also focusing on delivering a range of low-power integrated platforms to serve key markets, including commercial clients, mobile computing and gaming. We believe these platforms will bring customers increased performance and energy efficiency. We also work on advanced memory technologies. As SoC technology advances, the memory can sometimes limit CPU performance and we work on improving memory technology to improve performance. Another area of focus is machine intelligence which is the platform for the growing field of machine learning. Our CPUs, GPUs, accelerators, and APUs offer the computation capability and the flexibility required for various deployments of machine learning . We also work with industry leaders on process technology, software and other functional intellectual property and with others in the industry and industry consortia to conduct early stage research and development. We conduct product and system research and development activities for our products in the United States with additional design and development engineering teams located in Canada, China, India, Taiwan and Singapore who undertake specific activities at the direction of our U.S. headquarters.
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Manufacturing Arrangements and Assembly and Test Facilities
Third-Party Wafer Foundry Facilities
We have foundry arrangements with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (TSMC) for the production of wafers for certain products, including the production of all our 7 nm products.
We are also a party to a Wafer Supply Agreement (WSA) with GLOBALFOUNDRIES Inc. (GF), pursuant to which we are required to purchase all of our microprocessor and APU product requirements, and a certain portion of our GPU products, from GF manufactured at process nodes larger than 7 nm, with limited exceptions.
Other Third-Party Manufacturers
We outsource board-level graphics product manufacturing to third-party manufacturers.
Assembly, Test, Mark and Packaging Facilities
Wafers for our products are delivered from third-party foundries to our assembly, test, mark and packaging partners located in the Asia-Pacific region who package and test our final semiconductor products. We are party to two assembly, test, mark and pack (ATMP) joint ventures (collectively, the ATMP JVs) with Tongfu Microelectronics Co., Ltd. The majority of our ATMP services are provided by the ATMP JVs.
Intellectual Property and Licensing
We rely on contracts and intellectual property rights to protect our products and technologies from unauthorized third-party copying and use. Intellectual property rights include copyrights, patents, patent applications, trademarks, trade secrets and mask work rights. As of December 26, 2020, we had approximately 4,200 patents in the United States and approximately 1,000 patent applications pending in the United States. In certain cases, we have filed corresponding applications in foreign jurisdictions. Including United States and foreign matters, we have approximately 10,600 patent matters worldwide consisting of approximately 7,500 issued patents and 3,000 patent applications pending. We expect to file future patent applications in both the United States and abroad on significant inventions, as we deem appropriate. We do not believe that any individual patent, or the expiration of any patent, is or would be material to our business.
As is typical in the semiconductor industry, we have numerous cross-licensing and technology exchange agreements with other companies under which we both transfer and receive technology and intellectual property rights. One such agreement is the cross-license agreement that we entered into with Intel on November 11, 2009. Under the cross-license agreement, we granted to Intel and Intel granted to us, non-exclusive, royalty-free licenses to all of each other’s patents that were first filed no later than November 11, 2014 and each party can exploit these patents anywhere in the world for making and selling certain semiconductor- and electronic-related products. Under the cross-license agreement, Intel has rights to make semiconductor products for third parties, but the third-party product designs are not licensed as a result of such manufacture. We have rights to perform assembly and testing for third parties but not rights to make semiconductor products for third parties. The term of the cross-license agreement continues until the expiration of the last to expire of the licensed patents, unless earlier terminated. A party can terminate the cross-license agreement or the rights and licenses of the other party if the other party materially breaches the cross-license agreement and does not correct the noticed material breach within 60 days. Upon such termination, the terminated party’s license rights terminate but the terminating party’s license rights continue, subject to that party’s continued compliance with the terms of the cross-license agreement. The cross-license agreement will automatically terminate if a party undergoes a change of control (as defined in the cross-license agreement), and both parties’ licenses will terminate. Upon the bankruptcy of a party, that party may assume, but may not assign, the cross-license agreement, and in the event that the cross-license agreement cannot be assumed, the cross-license agreement and the licenses granted will terminate.
Backlog
Sales are made primarily pursuant to purchase orders for current delivery or agreements covering purchases over a period of time. Although such orders or agreements may provide visibility into future quarters, they may not necessarily be indicative of actual sales for any succeeding period as some of these orders or agreements may be revised or canceled without penalty. With respect to our semi-custom SoC products, our orders and agreements are more stringent resulting in meaningful backlog for the coming quarter.
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Seasonality
Our operating results tend to vary seasonally. Historically, our net revenue has been generally higher in the second half of the year than in the first half of the year, although market conditions and product transitions could impact these trends.
Human Capital
As of December 26, 2020, we had approximately 12,600 employees in our global workforce. We believe we are at our best when our culture of innovation, creative minds and people from all kinds of backgrounds work together in an engaging and open environment. Areas of focus for us include the following:
Mission, Culture, and Engagement
Our History - Founded in 1969 as a Silicon Valley start-up, the AMD journey began with dozens of employees focused on leading-edge semiconductor products. From those modest beginnings, we have grown into a global company achieving many important industry firsts along the way. Today, we develop high-performance computing and visualization products to solve some of the world’s toughest and most interesting challenges.
Our Vision - High performance computing is transforming our lives.
Our Mission - Build great products that accelerate next-generation computing experiences.
Our employees are driven by this vision and mission. Innovation occurs when creative minds and diverse perspectives from all over the world work together. This is the foundation of our unique culture and the reason why AMD employees are among the most engaged in our industry.
We conduct a confidential annual survey of our global workforce to measure our culture, engagement, and manager quality. The results are reviewed by the AMD Board of Directors and acted upon by our senior leadership team and individual managers at every level. Results from our 2020 survey reported continued improvement across all categories, and scores were among the very best for global companies in the technology industry. Our employees described our culture as innovative, open, and respectful, and rated the quality of our managers among the top 10% of our technology industry peers.
Belonging and Inclusion
Our diverse and inclusive workforce encourages employees to share their opinions and different perspectives. We believe that building a diverse talent pipeline, encouraging a culture of respect and belonging, and increasing inclusion of unique and underrepresented voices makes AMD stronger. AMD’s Employee Resource Groups encourage employee engagement and play an important role in our culture.
We are focused on hiring and developing under-represented minorities and women leaders. We are proud to be led by a highly regarded CEO who has won many esteemed awards for her business and technical prowess. In 2020, Lisa Su received the chip industry’s highest honor as the 2020 recipient of the Robert N. Noyce Award. Dr. Su also ranked #2 on Fortune’s Businessperson of the Year list for her strategic vision and successful company turn around.
Total Rewards
We invest in our workforce by offering competitive salaries, incentives, and benefits that are determined based on employee’s preferences. Our incentives are meritocracy-based and we have a strong pay for performance culture that we believe drives superior results. We benchmark our total rewards annually to ensure our compensation and benefit programs remain competitive with our peers.
Development
We offer our employees opportunities to advance their careers at AMD. We are focused on leadership progression and encourage our employees take advantage of new opportunities. Our manager and leadership development programs are highly rated and we provide specialized development programs for our employees.
Environmental Regulations
Our operations and properties have in the past been and continue to be subject to various United States and foreign laws and regulations, including those relating to materials used in our products and manufacturing processes,
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discharge of pollutants into the environment, the treatment, transport, storage and disposal of solid and hazardous wastes and remediation of contamination. These laws and regulations require our suppliers to obtain permits for operations making our products, including the discharge of air pollutants and wastewater. Although our management systems are designed to oversee our suppliers’ compliance, we cannot assure you that our suppliers have been or will be at all times in complete compliance with such laws, regulations and permits. If our suppliers violate or fail to comply with any of them, a range of consequences could result, including fines, suspension of production, alteration of manufacturing processes, import/export restrictions, sales limitations, criminal and civil liabilities or other sanctions. We could also be held liable for any and all consequences arising out of exposure to hazardous materials used, stored, released, disposed of by us or located at, under or emanating from our facilities or other environmental or natural resource damage. While we have budgeted for foreseeable associated expenditures, we cannot assure you that future environmental legal requirements will not become more stringent or costly in the future. Therefore, we cannot assure you that our costs of complying with current and future environmental and health and safety laws, and our liabilities arising from past and future releases of, or exposure to, hazardous substances will not have a material adverse effect on us.
Environmental laws are complex, change frequently and have tended to become more stringent over time. For example, the European Union (EU) and China are two among a growing number of jurisdictions that have enacted restrictions on the use of lead and other materials in electronic products. These regulations affect semiconductor devices and packaging. As regulations restricting materials in electronic products continue to increase around the world, there is a risk that the cost, quality and manufacturing yields of products that are subject to these restrictions, may be less favorable compared to products that are not subject to such restrictions, or that the transition to compliant products may not meet customer roadmaps, or produce sudden changes in demand, which may result in excess inventory. A number of jurisdictions including the EU, Australia, California and China are developing or have finalized market entry or public procurement regulations for computers and servers based on ENERGY STAR specifications as well as additional energy consumption limits. There is the potential for certain of our products being excluded from some of these markets which could materially adversely affect us.
Certain environmental laws, including the U.S. Comprehensive, Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act of 1980, or the Superfund Act, impose strict or, under certain circumstances, joint and several liability on current and previous owners or operators of real property for the cost of removal or remediation of hazardous substances and impose liability for damages to natural resources. These laws often impose liability even if the owner or operator did not know of, or was not responsible for, the release of such hazardous substances. These environmental laws also assess liability on persons who arrange for hazardous substances to be sent to disposal or treatment facilities when such facilities are found to be contaminated. Such persons can be responsible for cleanup costs even if they never owned or operated the contaminated facility.
We are named as a responsible party on Superfund clean-up orders for three sites in Sunnyvale, California that are on the National Priorities List. Since 1981, we have discovered hazardous material releases to the groundwater from former underground tanks and proceeded to investigate and conduct remediation at these three sites. The chemicals released into the groundwater were commonly used in the semiconductor industry in the United States in the wafer fabrication process prior to 1979.
In 1991, we received Final Site Clean-up Requirements Orders from the California Regional Water Quality Control Board relating to the three sites. We have entered into settlement agreements with other responsible parties on two of the orders. During the term of such agreements, other parties have agreed to assume most of the foreseeable costs as well as the primary role in conducting remediation activities under the orders. We remain responsible for additional costs beyond the scope of the agreements as well as all remaining costs in the event that the other parties do not fulfill their obligations under the settlement agreements.
To address anticipated future remediation costs under the orders, we have computed and recorded an estimated environmental liability of approximately $4 million and have not recorded any potential insurance recoveries in determining the estimated costs of the cleanup. Costs could also increase as a result of additional test and remediation obligations imposed by the Environmental Protection Agency or California Regional Water Quality Control Board. The progress of future remediation efforts cannot be predicted with certainty and these costs may change. We believe that the potential liability, if any, in excess of amounts already accrued, will not have a material adverse effect on our financial condition, cash flows or results of operations.
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