There is no facet of our lives in which products enabled by semiconductors do not play an important role. I believe the information technology industry, for which semiconductors provide the essential enabling technology, will be the principal engine of economic growth and prosperity for at least the first decades of the new century. In May of this year, AMD observed its 30 th anniversary. In the past three decades, we have grown from an unheralded Silicon Valley start-up to one of the world's premier semiconductor companies. AMD is first and foremost a semiconductor manufacturer.
Semiconductor manufacturing is built on process technology.
Simply stated, in our industry process technology is the ability to provide ever-increasing functionality and performance in silicon. That is to say, to do ever more for ever less. The largest segment of the industry is the microprocessor segment, which produced approximately 20 percent of total worldwide semiconductor sales in 1998. Today AMD is the second-largest producer of microprocessors in the world. This projected market opportunity closely parallels the planned production ramp of Fab 30.