AMD opens global design centre in Hyd

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) Inc, an NYSE-listed semiconductor design company, inaugurated a new global design centre in Hyderabad on Thursday. The 175,000-sft facility is dedicated to furthering both software and hardware innovations at the heart of AMD's APUs (accelerated processing units).

The company, which spends around $1-billion each year to develop products, globally employs over 10,000, including 6,000 engineers. Of these, around 550 engineers work out of its Hyderabad centre and an equal number in the Bangalore facility.

"The Indian consumers are looking for the experience and the kind of interaction with the devices they use ... for gaming, movies or high-definition. The products that we are innovating and creating here in Hyderabad and Bangalore and across the world, is hitting that kind of experience that the customer wants. This is the kind of leadership that I think you are going to see out of AMD, going forward," AMD Inc's president and chief executive officer, Rory Read, told mediapersons.

Stating that the company would continue to expand in the Indian market, he said the reason for this was because they believed that the future was bright for the company courtesy the engineering prowess and talent in India.

"One of our low-power products Brazo (developed in India), which went into production in November 2010, just passed the 50-million-unit sales mark in Q1 of 2013," he said.