From AMD's perspective: • The ex-CEO was criticized for selling their mobile business to Qualcomm just before the Apple+Android explosion • AMD spun off GloFo

From AMD's perspective: • The ex-CEO was criticized for selling their mobile business to Qualcomm just before the Apple+Android explosion • AMD spun off GloFo due to immediate liquidity problems but maintained a stake. Recently they have sold their stake, so if AMD is successful at being design-only, their actions are justified. But it would seem they are dwindling - i.e. Bulldozer is hardly a home run, and lots of sources are saying the move to automated layout of their transistors is a significant part of the problem - so being design-only could be seen as a mistake. Obligatory: Intel uses extensive auto-layout and auto-analysis of designs; they seem to have the advantage in this area by merging automatic synthesis with focused optimizations by engineers.