Silicon Valley semiconductor heavyweight AMD (Advanced Micro Devices, Inc) wants around 40 top engineers and other key staff for its new Cambridge operation.
The Californian business has put down roots at the Westbrook Centre in the city and confirmed that it is planning to grow quickly from Day One.
Anchored in Santa Clara and now with more than 22,500 employees, AMD now has UK operations in Cambridge, Milton Keynes and Edinburgh. Its stock sells for just under $100 per share. Through its recent acquisition of Xilinx for an estimated $50 billion – reportedly the largest deal in semiconductor history – AMD rates Cambridge high on its list of global growth priorities.
AMD could hardly have timed its Cambridge arrival more astutely with Arm laying off staff and churn in the sector at its highest for years. Several major players in this and allied segments are looking for engineers.
AMD has joined Cambridge Network – a Business Weekly partner in promoting the Cluster on a global stage. AMD claims to offer the industry’s broadest portfolio of high-performance and adaptive processor technologies, combining CPUs, GPUs, FPGAs, Adaptive SoCs, and deep software expertise which enables leadership computing platforms for cloud, edge, and end devices.
Martin Porter, Corporate VP, Networking and Storage Software Solutions at AMD shared growth plans with Claire Angus, head of Recruitment Gateway at Cambridge Network , for the current series of articles with Business Weekly.
Martin has been with the company since 2004, with the team originating from Solarflare which was acquired by Xilinx in 2019. He confirms that current staff headcount is over 100, with plans to significantly grow numbers over the next couple of years.
As well as expanding the existing group focused on networking, AMD’s Cambridge operation is also planning to expand and diversify into new areas including CPU and Graphics engineering teams to be based in the Cambridge office.
The networking group develops what are termed SmartNICs which are programable accelerators for data centres to offload networking, security and storage.
The AMD CPU and Graphics teams develop the ‘Zen’ family of processors and Radeon graphics currently feeding AMD products across multiple businesses, including industry-leading servers, desktops, laptops, and game consoles.
Martin says: “It’s been important through these recent changes that our office retains its positive, innovative, and flexible company culture to create great products. I’m pleased to say, this has been maintained with around 70-80 members of the team having worked together for the past 10 years.”
He said AMD sees huge value in having a Cambridge office and being part of the Cambridge Network. It recognises that the local Cambridge talent base is a good fit for the people it is planning to hire.
Founded in 1969 as a Silicon Valley startup, the AMD journey began with dozens of employees focused on leading-edge semiconductor products. From those modest beginnings, AMD has grown into a global company setting the standard for modern computing through major technological achievements and many important industry firsts along the way.
Rooted in an innovation-driven culture, AMD employees collaborate every day to maximise the potential of modern computing, utilising semiconductor innovation to transform how people live, work, learn and play.