There are experiences doing the rounds that AMD have agreed to pay out $29.5m so as to settle a category motion lawsuit surrounding points with their 2011 Llano APU launch. The settlement would keep away from the case going to trial, and will imply solely tech historians will ever want to determine the best way to pronounce the identify of AMD’s first accelerated processing unit.
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Back in 2014 a gaggle of AMD buyers filed a category motion lawsuit towards the corporate, alleging that they didn’t adequately inform buyers about issues they had been having with the manufacturing of the Llano vary of APUs.
The class motion covers anybody who purchased AMD shares between April four, 2011 and October 18, 2012. These dates cowl a interval after delays to the launch of the Llano chips, the place AMD had claimed Llano’s issues had been over. They kinda weren’t.
The issues GlobalFoundries had been having with yields for the brand new 32nm APUs – the explanation given for delaying the discharge from 2010 to mid-2011 – had, in response to AMD, been resolved earlier than the delayed June 2011 launch. After launch it appeared these yield points had not been resolved they usually had been nonetheless struggling to supply sufficient APUs to fill the motherboards that had been already in the stores.
When we’re speaking yield points, we’re not messing about both. Normally acceptable silicon yields are one thing like 80% of the chips from a given wafer being usable. Experts quoted within the preliminary grievance state that Llano yields had been within the low teenagers, at greatest. That’s fairly brutal.
AMD saved stating all through the category interval, nonetheless, that demand for the Llano chips was sturdy and that gross sales had been excessive, regardless of solely having the ability to ship elements to their OEM prospects and never into the channel. By the time they had been in a position to produce sufficient inventory the demand wasn’t there and the world had moved on to different applied sciences… which additionally led to AMD having to put in writing off round $100m in previous inventory they couldn’t shift.
I am certain AMD could have discovered from such issues and nothing like this – low yields, excessive claimed demand, world shifting on – would ever occur once more. I imply, that is the unhealthy previous days, proper?
Over this time AMD’s share value had dropped by some 74%, which the grievance alleges is “due to Defendants’ false and misleading statements.”
The $29.5m settlement has but to be permitted by the Judge coping with the lawsuit, however would imply AMD may keep away from the case coming to trial and thus dodge admitting any actual culpability. But the plaintiffs may nonetheless select to push it by way of to trial in the event that they consider they may win, get more money, or no less than an admission the corporate had actually completed one thing incorrect.
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