Based on tips provided by Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) Taiwan, the police Friday raided an electronics company located in Tainan, southern Taiwan, and seized a total of 60,000 suspect AMD CPUs, according to the police and sources at AMD Taiwan.
The suspect AMD CPUs, including K7 and K8 models, were defective CPUs that would normally have been destroyed. However, market sources said that the CPUs might have been stolen from one of AMD’s three packaging and testing plants in Asia and shipped to Taiwan for re-marking. The possible source of the defective chips could be one of AMD’s packaging and testing plants in Singapore or Malaysia, or in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province (China), said the sources.
Over a million re-marked AMD CPUs have allegedly been shipped to Germany and China, the Chinese-language Liberty Times reported Saturday, adding that the value of the seized CPUs would be about NT$300 million (about US$9.46 million).
Sources at AMD Taiwan confirmed that the 60,000 seized in Taiwan are defective CPUs rejected by the company, however, the company has officially refused to comment on the seized products in Taiwan or the alleged one million shipped to Germany and China, stating that the company may release an official statement when the police investigation has concluded.
The company from which the suspect product was seized is called
