Chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) today announced it has begun the construction of a US$45m semiconductor testing facility in Singapore, building on an existing 258,000 square foot production facility. The Singapore facilities are currently helping put the finishing touches on AMD's upcoming "Hammer" family of 64-bit processors, designed to challenge Intel in the high-end server market.
The investment comes at a moment when many PC and microchip manufacturers are scaling back investment because of the slowing growth of the PC industry and the US economy.
AMD said the new facility reflects increasing demand for chips such as Athlon and Duron, which compete with Intel's dominant Pentium and Celeron. "The expansion of AMD's Singapore operations is an investment in the facilities and resources which will allow AMD to provide the sophisticated quality and process control systems needed to meet our customer's demand for high volumes of AMD Athlon and AMD Duron processors," said Ajay Marathe, vice president of microprocessor operations and logistics at AMD, in a statement.
The seven-story, 345,000-square-foot facility, which will include a new 260,000-square-foot production facility, will be used for testing microprocessors, engineering research and development, and integrated circuit design.
