AMD sells off stake in GlobalFoundries

Company gets out of fabrication business in latest deal

AMD has agreed a new manufacturing deal which will see the company hand over its remaining shares in the GlobalFoundries fabrication business.

The company said that it would be amending its wafer supply agreement with the manufacturer.

Under the new deal, AMD will not have to make a quarterly payment to GlobalFoundries and will hand over its remaining stake in the firm.

Additionally, AMD will pay to end its exclusivity deal which would have made GlobalFoundries the sole manufacturer for the company's 28nm chips. Buying out the deal will cost AMD roughly $425m.

"The amended wafer supply agreement demonstrates that AMD and GlobalFoundries remain committed as long-term strategic business partners," AMD chief executive Rory Read said.

"We made significant progress last year to strengthen our relationship, and we're pleased with GlobalFoundries recent performance in meeting our delivery requirements across our product line."

AMD first span off GlobalFoundaries in 2009, as it concentrated its efforts on designing chips.

Last year, GlobalFoundaries underwent a management shake-up and multi-billion dollar investment push.

The deal also comes as AMD is looking to expand its presence in the server market. The planned acquisition of low-power server specialist SeaMicro may see the firm make a push in the cloud computing datacentre markets.