AMD to bring graphics divisions to Radeon Technologies Group

AMD brings all graphics-related parts of the company to the Radeon Technologies Group. This is a new division within AMD and not a spin-off. There were rumors that AMD wanted to set up a separate GPU company.

Raja Koduri will be the head of Radeon Technologies Group. Koduri already had managerial positions to his name before the takeover at ATi. In 2009, he switched from AMD to Apple to support Steve Jobs in improving the graphics performance of Apple products. There he played a major role in the introduction of screens with a high pixel density. In 2013, Koduri returned to AMD again. He now reports directly to AMD CEO Lisa Su.

In the years following the acquisition of Canadian graphics card developer ATi in 2006, AMD has been working hard to integrate the brand into AMD; only one company had to remain after the acquisition, and that included phasing out the ATi brand. So now a separate graphics division within AMD is being set up to “improve performance in the graphics markets and to lead the way in the emerging VR and AR markets,” the company says.

AMD is struggling with a sharply shrinking market share when it comes to graphics cards, according to research firm Jon Peddie Research; 18 percent of desktops with video cards would be AMD hardware and the remaining 82 percent would be owned by its competitor, Nvidia.

AMD has high hopes for the custom chips market. The company has agreements with Sony and Microsoft to supply the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 with chips, which in the past provided bright spots in the quarterly figures. Reuters rumored in the summer that AMD was considering splitting itself into two parts, but AMD denied that.