It might be thought that AMD only recently outsourced its production to foundry - a process which ended in its being included in the fabless category of companies for the first time last year.
But the process of going to foundry for its wafers, actually started 15 years ago when the company boosted its production of AM486 family of microprocessors through a foundry deal with TSMC.
Under the deal, announced in 1994, AMD transferred its 0.5-micron CMOS process technology to TSMC and the first products out of Hsinchu were 100MHz versions of the AM486.
"This additional capacity will allow us to meet our goal of producing more than 10 million Am486 devices in 1995. In 1995 TSMC expects to ramp up to more than a million units," said Jerry Sanders III, Founder, Chairman and CEO of AMD
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