AMD, Advanced Micro Devices, announced on Tuesday that it will split in two companies as designing and manufacturing their products is becoming a more and more difficult job to pull off. The new companies will take care of designing and manufacturing separately. AMD cut a deal with ATIC, which is going to invest up to $6 billion in AMD products in the following 5 years, the deal allowing Advanced Micro Devices to focus more on designing better and more powerful microprocessors.

This new turn of affairs is considered by the people at AMD one of the biggest and boldest steps in the company’s history. AMD has been and still is Intel’s direct competitor, the two fighting almost head to head for domination in the computer parts business. The fact that Intel is the only company that still designs and manufacturers its own products might count in the long run and can be seen as an advantage. AMD is not looking for an increased profit, it actually expects that the split will not bring losses to the company and that financially AMD will remain where it is today.

According to Dick Meyers a small number of layoffs are possible due to the fact that workers will have to be reassigned to the new company’s centers based in New York, Dresden and Austin. AMD also announced that it will continue the expansion planed in Dresden, Germany and that it will start construction of a new fab in New York State. Overall, this is a good thing for AMD as its chips are expected to get better and better, possibly becoming a bigger threat for Intel’s products.