AMD, Fuji unveil Spansion
PrintJV now up and running with silly product name
Posted in Channel, 14th July 2003 13:32 GMT
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AMD and Fujitsu have christened their Flash memory joint venture's product branding.
Yes, from today Flash memory purchased from AMD or Fujitsu will be branded Spansion. We can't say exactly why it sounds silly - but it does. It's obviously short for 'expansion', and is intended to convey the fact that the companies' products span the spectrum.
Maybe, but we keep misreading it as 'Spanish'. 'Spansion Flash' then becomes into 'Spanish Fly' and suddenly we're not in Kansas any more, Toto.
And we dread to think how much money was paid to consultants to dream up this nonsense.
Anyway, the branding announcement follows the completion of the move, revealed last April, to merge the two companies' Flash operations. The new business will be called FASL (formerly Fujitsu AMD Semiconductor Limited - it's no longer an acronym, officials tell us) and employ 7000 people in Sunnyvale and Austin in the US, and Aizu-Wakamatsu and Tokyo in Japan, plus plants in Thailand, Malaysia and China. FASL is valued at $3 billion.
FASL's results will go straight onto AMD's books. AMD owns 60 per cent of the JV; Fujitsu the remainder. ®
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