Advanced Micro Devices
1976 – We tried to sell the ideas and patent applications we had developed to several semiconductor companies, including AMD. That was not successful, but as
we were leaving the AMD conference room one of my ex-coworkers from Fairchild, Jim Downey, put his arm around my shoulders and said “Marshall, we are not interested in CCD memories, but you need a job. Join AMD.” I did and I did.
I became a photolithographic engineer in AMD’s Fab III, and one of the key members of a team designing Fab IV, the first 4” diameter wafer fabrication facility for AMD. I progressed from Engineering Manager of Fab IV, with the responsibility
for all technology development and sustaining for all MOS devices, then was promoted to Operations Manager for the fab area, and increased production from 1000 wafers per week to 4000 wafers per week, resulting in $500M annual sales, which was one half of
AMD’s revenue.
I was again promoted to be Managing Director of BiPolar RAMs. I originated, designed, organized and developed the new Directorate. We greatly expanded the product line, grew sales from nothing to $28M in two years.
A Managing Director at AMD was responsible for overall profit and loss, strategic and tactical marketing, product design and development, production control and order fulfilment. I was also still running Fab IV.
After
T.J. Rogers left AMD to form Cypress Semiconductor in 1982, Jerry Sanders asked me to move over and take the responsibility of running AMD’s MOS RAM business. When Jerry asks you to do something you say “yes”. So I became Managing
Director for a $70M operational unit of a $1B semiconductor company. This included the responsibility for overall profit and loss, strategic and tactical marketing, product/design/test engineering functions, technology development, production control,
wafer fabrication and test operations, and companywide technical training, and engineering information systems. During this period the group’s sales increased from $25M to $70M with >15% PAT and ultimately this involved managing the activities
of approximately 600 people.
AMD was a very good company to work for during most of this time. Jerry Sanders was a flamboyant, charismatic, intelligent CEO. He set the pace with diamond
encrusted Rolex watches, a chauffeur driven Rolls Royce, white linen suits. We had company parties in San Francisco with big name bands, the sales conferences were in Hawaii, the Directors’ conferences were at Pebble Beach, or Silverado CC and
the sales folks had very large expense accounts. I asked two close friends to contribute their remembrances of AMD parties. The first is from John Bourgoin.
The first AMD big party, celebrating the 10 year anniversary of the company, was, I believe, at Brooks Hall at the Civic Center in downtown San Francisco. None of us knew what to expect before
we arrived. But it was amazing. (I heard that at the time it was the largest party in the history of San Francisco). I think about 8000 people attended (my recollection, might be in error). We walked into a large arena with multiple
rooms surrounding the arena with mounds (quite literally) of different types of food in each room. The shrimp tables were particularly memorable, with I’d guess hundreds of pounds of shrimp in huge mounds, but there were beef rooms, Italian rooms,
Mexican rooms, Chinese rooms, etc. It was amazing. Carlos Santana was the band. Jerry Sanders spoke and announced the door prizes….. the second prize was a car….I remember that upon announcing the 2nd
prize, Jerry said, “I wonder what 1st prize could be?” Well, it was a new home….actually house payments for 20 years, and it was won by one of the line workers. I’m quite sure it changed her life. This
is the kind of thing that made AMD and Jerry such a phenomenon in the Valley. Nobody had done this kind of stuff. But, AMD was hot and Sanders did hot things. People all over the Valley talked about this for a long time, and it probably did
a lot for our recruiting, worth the million dollars or so the party cost.
This second description is of the party held the following year, is written by another very good
friend from AMD.
Walking into the San Francisco Gift Center building was an experience…lots of trees with white lights
and everything was sparkling. It was as if we were transported to a completely different environment and it was all magical. Food tables and open bars were everywhere. There was never a time when you went hungry or thirsty because refreshment tables
were set up every few feet in the room. Kenny Loggins was the entertainment…to this day, EVERY TIME I hear the first several bars of the intro to the song “Whenever I Call You Friend”, I think about that evening. It was unique
and special….we all felt that we were a part of something exciting, fun, interesting and grand…..I always thought the events were a reflection of Jerry and what he wanted to communicate to employees and their guests…”Follow me, be
a part of this place, be a part of this idea called AMD, and you will be in for one heck of a ride.” And we felt like we were all part of something much larger than ourselves, and some very interesting Silicon Valley history.
Unfortunately,
the good times did not continue to roll. The company sales went from $500M/yr to $1000M/yr and back down to $500M/yr; the going up was fun, the going down was brutal. What happened was the IBM PC had become a commercial success, and there
were 100 PC startup companies formed to make similar products, each with a business plan that said they would gain 10% of the market, and bought the components in sufficient quantity to meet that plan. AMD supplied the processors and memory chips to
many of these startup companies. When most of them went out of business due to over competition, these chips came back on the market through distributors or gray market channels, and AMD found that we were competing with these resellers who had paid
10¢ on the dollar and therefore could, and did undercut AMD’s prices. Business stunk for a year. It was apparent that cost cutting was necessary, and this included moving many of the company functions to Austin Texas, and eliminating
several management levels, including the Managing Director level. I was out, with six month’s severance.