Monday, the company unveiled one of the first fruits of the deal, a new PC chip platform that integrates ATI's high-performance graphics chips. Codenamed Spider, AMD for the first time can claim to offer a high-performance, energy-efficient package of chips that includes its own microprocessors and graphics chips.

But AMD also is still paying the price for the ATI deal, which saddled the chipmaker with a big chunk of debt. When it was announced in July 2006, investors initially panned the transaction for the cash-heavy ($4.2 billion of it) consideration, which added about $2.5 billion to the chipmaker's debt load.

Partly to help alleviate this burden, AMD has been passing the hat. It announced Friday that it sold an 8.1% stake to Abu Dhabi government-owned Mubadala Development Co. for $622 million. About $608 million will end up in AMD's coffers after it reimburses the investment company for expenses.

It is also needs the cash to keep investing in 45-nanometer chip technology in order to catch up to and stay competitive with archrival Intel Corp. [INTC], which recently announced its own line of chips using this next-generations technology that incorporates ever-tinier features.

Investors were not particularly impressed by either of AMD's recent announcements. Shares of the chipmaker were down 4%, to $12.13, in late afternoon trading. - Olaf de Senerpont Domis

See Nov. 19 press release from AMD
See Nov. 12 post from CNBC's TechCheck
See July 2006 story from TheDeal.com