AMD ships 500 millionth processor

AMD is marking the shipment of its 500 millionth x86 processor.

The chipmaker said on Wednesday that it had reached the milestone 40 years after the company was first founded.

"I am excited about what we plan to bring to our customers on cloud server computing and media-rich consumer usage models," AMD vice president of marketing Pat Moorhead wrote in a blog post.

"Pundits will take shots and that's okay, as it tends to motivate us and enhance the sweetness of our successes in the end."

To mark the occasion and the anniversary, the company is planning to run a free notebook contest. Users will be asked to answer questions about the company, and winners will have a chance to win one of four HP notebooks.

The sales milestone comes amidst what has been an otherwise rough time for the company. Yesterday AMD released quarterly results which showed a 13 per cent decline in shipments and a loss of $330m.