New monthly offerings of ”clubs” worked for booksellers and fruit producers, but none of them was quite as ambitious as the ”chip of the week” plan of Advanced Micro Devices Inc.
The Sunnydale, Calif., company has announced it will introduce a brand new semiconductor, or chip, every week for the coming year, starting Oct. 1.
”We believe that when the upturn comes, the demand will not be for old chips but for new products and new applications,” the Advanced spokesman said.
”Obviously, we had a lot of new products in the chute,” he said. ”But this isn`t going to be easy; its a companywide commitment.”
The new chips will run the gamut of Advanced`s product lines, he added, and samples will be available, along with shipping dates and prices.
They`ll be called ”liberty chips,” according to a presidential decree
–that of the company`s president, W.J. Sanders III, who kicked off the ambitious program at the company`s annual meeting in Austin, Tex., Wednesday. The liberty chips are being named after the liberty ships that were launched during World War II, a company spokesman said. ”They will free us from the tyranny of the commodity marketplace,” he added.
Although some observers might think the strain of the current year-long semiconductor slump has finally gotten to the folks at Advanced, they insist their new strategy is the key to planning for the industry`s long-awaited upturn.
