14 DAY TRIAL // Not so long ago, Hector Ruiz stepped down as CEO of Advanced Micro, being replaced by the company's chief operating officer, Dirk Meyer. Rumors of Hector Ruiz stepping down as AMD's chief executive officer have surfaced since May this year, but they were confirmed only a few months ago. Despite the fact that Ruiz hasn't left AMD, on-going rumors indicate that the company is separated into two different firms.
After stepping down from his role as CEO, Hector Ruiz kept his position as chairman of the board with the purpose of launching AMD's Asset Light and Asset Smart strategies. According to a recent article on tgdaily, Asset Light is expected to divide AMD into two firms, one which will be lead by the company's current CEO, Dirk Meyer and focus on the development of chip technologies, while the other will take over AMD's fabs.
At this time, it is yet uncertain whether Hector Ruiz will remain with the firm or whether he is going to take the role of CEO for the manufacturing company. Officially, there are no specific details regarding a possible announcement and the direction of Asset Light/Smart provided by AMD. However, Ruiz did offer an indication of how important this step will be for AMD.
"All I can tell you right now is that if it were something as simple as going to a foundry it would be very easy to do and talk about it but it is actually something we believe is uniquely tailored to AMD and uniquely tailored to our customers and our company and therefore much more complex to do than just a general outsourcing scenario," Ruiz stated.
At this time, Advanced Micro can see the first fruits of its acquisition of graphics company ATI, with the release of the Radeon HD 4870 X2, which it has claimed to be the "world's fastest" graphics card.