UNITED STATES

Washington, D.C. 20549

(408) 749-4000

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act:

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(g) of the Act:

None

Portions of the registrant’s proxy statement for the 20192021 Annual Meeting of Stockholders (2019(2021 Proxy Statement) are incorporated into Part III hereof. The 20192021 Proxy Statement will be filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission within 120 days after the registrant’s fiscal year ended December 29, 2018.26, 2020.

PART I

Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

The statements in this report include forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are based on current expectations and beliefs and involve numerous risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date hereof or as of the dates indicated in the statements and should not be relied upon as predictions of future events, as we cannot assure you that the events or circumstances reflected in these statements will be achieved or will occur. You can identify forward-looking statements by the use of forward-looking terminology including “believes,” “expects,” “may,” “will,” “should,” “seeks,” “intends,” “plans,” “pro forma,” “estimates,” “anticipates,” or the negative of these words and phrases, other variations of these words and phrases or comparable terminology. The forward-looking statements relate to, among other things: possible impact of future accounting rules on AMD’s consolidated financial statements; demand for AMD’s products; the growth, change and competitive landscape of the markets in which AMD participates; the nature and extent of AMD’s future payments to GLOBALFOUNDRIES Inc. (GF) and the materiality of these payments; the materiality of AMD’s future purchases from GF; AMD’s ability to meet its wafer purchase target; the expected amounts to be received by AMD under the IP licensing agreement and AMD’s expected royalty payments from future product sales of China JVs’the two joint ventures AMD holds equity in with Higon Information Technology Co., Ltd. (THATIC JVs) products to be developed on the basis of such licensed IP; sales patterns of AMD’s PC products and semi-custom System-on-Chip (SoC) products for game consoles; the level of international sales as compared to total sales;products; international sales will continue to be a significant portion of total sales in the foreseeable future; that other unrecognized tax benefits will not materially change in the next 12 months; that AMD’s cash, and cash equivalents and short-term investment balances together with the availability under that certain secured revolving line of credit (Securedfacility (the Revolving Line of Credit)Credit Facility) made available to AMD and certain of its subsidiaries under the Amended and Restated LoanCredit Agreement, will be sufficient to fund AMD’s operations including capital expenditures over the next 12 months; AMD’s ability to obtain sufficient external financing on favorable terms, or at all; AMD’s expectation that based on the information presently known to management, the potential liability related to AMD’s current litigation will not have a material adverse effect on its financial condition, cash flows or results of operations; any amounts in addition to what has been already accrued by AMD for future remediation costs under clean-up orders will not be material;have a material effect on our financial condition, cash flows or results of operations; we expect to file future patent applications in both the United States and abroad on significant inventions as we deem appropriate; anticipated increase inongoing and increased costs related to enhancing implementing and monitoringimplementing information security controls, remediating any data security breaches and addressing related litigation, mitigating reputational harm and compliance with external regulations related to our IT assets; we expect to receive $448.5 million upon the exercise of a warrant by West Coast Hitech L.P. (WCH) and issue 75 million shares of our common stock to WCH;controls; revenue allocated to remaining performance obligations that are unsatisfied which will be recognized over the next 12 months; all unbilled accounts receivables are expected to be billed and collected within 12 months; a small number of customers will continue to account for a substantial part of AMD’s revenue in the future. Material factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from current expectations include, without limitation, the following: Intel Corporation’s dominance of the microprocessor market and its aggressive business practices may limit AMD’s ability to compete effectively; AMD has a wafer supply agreement with GF with obligations to purchase all of its microprocessor and APU product requirements, and a certain portion of its GPU product requirements, manufactured at process nodes larger than 7 nanometer (nm) from GF with limited exceptions. If GF is not able to satisfy AMD’s manufacturing requirements, AMD’s business could be adversely impacted; AMD relies on third parties to manufacture its products, and if they are unable to do so on a timely basis in sufficient quantities and using competitive technologies, AMD’s business could be materially adversely affected; failure to achieve expected manufacturing yields for AMD’s products could negatively impact its financial results; the success of AMD’s business is dependent upon its ability to introduce products on a timely basis with features and performance levels that provide value to its customers while supporting and coinciding with significant industry transitions; if AMD cannot generate sufficient revenue and operating cash flow or obtain external financing, it may face a cash shortfall and be unable to make all of its planned investments in research and development or other strategic investments; the loss of a significant customer may have a material adverse effect on AMD; AMD’s receipt of revenue from its semi-custom SoC products is dependent upon its technology being designed into third-party productsfuture; and the successacquisition of those products; global economic and market uncertainty may adversely impact AMD’s business and operating results; AMD’s products may be subjectXilinx, Inc. is currently expected to security vulnerabilities that could have a material adverse effect on AMD; IT outages, data loss, data breaches and cyber-attacks could compromise AMD’s intellectual property or other sensitive information, be costly to remediate and cause significant damage to its business, reputation and operations; AMD’s operating results are subject to quarterly and seasonal sales patterns; AMD may not be able to generate sufficient cash to service its debt obligations or meet its working capital requirements; AMD has a large amount of indebtedness which could adversely affect its financial position and prevent it from implementing its strategy or fulfilling its contractual obligations; the agreements governing AMD’s notes and the Secured Revolving Line of Credit impose restrictions on AMD that may adversely affect AMD’s ability

We are a global semiconductor company primarily offering:

WeFrom time to time, we may also sell or license portions of our intellectual property (IP) portfolio.

For financial information about geographic areas and for segment information with respect to revenues and operating results, refer to the information set forth in Note 1514 of our consolidated financial statements.

We use a 52 or 53 week fiscal year ending on the last Saturday in December. The years ended December 29, 2018, December 30, 2017 and December 31, 2016 included 52 weeks, 52 weeks and 53 weeks, respectively. References in this report to 2018, 20172020, 2019 and 20162018 refer to the fiscal year unless explicitly stated otherwise.

Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) was incorporated under the laws of Delaware on May 1, 1969 and became a publicly held company in 1972. Our common stock is currently listed on The NASDAQ Global Select Market (NASDAQ) under the symbol “AMD”. Our mailing address and executive offices are located at 2485 Augustine Drive, Santa Clara, California 95054, and our telephone number is (408) 749-4000. The SEC'sSEC website, www.sec.gov, contains reports, proxy and information statements, and other information regarding issuers that file electronically with the SEC.

References in this Annual Report on Form 10-K to “AMD,” “we,” “us,” “management,” “our” or the “Company” mean Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. and our consolidated subsidiaries.

AMD, the AMD Arrow logo, Athlon, AMD CDNA, AMD Instinct, AMD RDNA, EPYC, FirePro, FreeSync, Geode, LiquidVR, Opteron, Radeon, Radeon Instinct, RDNA, Ryzen, Threadripper, Infinity Fabric, and combinations thereof are trademarks of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.

Microsoft, Windows, Direct X, Xbox 360DirectX and Xbox One are either registered trademarks or registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. PCIe is a registered trademark of PCI-SIG Corporation. Chromebook and Stadia are trademarks of Google Inc. Linux is the registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in the United States and other jurisdictions.

Other names are for informational purposes only and are used to identify companies and products and may be trademarks of their respective owners.

If we make substantive amendments to our Code of Ethics or grant any waiver, including any implicit waiver, to our principal executive officer, principal financial officer, principal accounting officer, controller or persons performing similar functions, we intend to disclose the nature of such amendment or waiver on our Website.

The information contained on our Website is not incorporated by reference in, or considered to be a part of, this report.

We are a global semiconductor company. Semiconductors are components used in a variety of electronic products and systems. An integrated circuit (IC) is a semiconductor device that consists of many interconnected transistors on a single chip. Since the invention of the transistor in 1948, improvements in IC process and design technologies have led to the development of smaller, more complex and more reliable ICs at a lower cost-per-function.

The x86 MicroprocessorComputing and Chipset MarketsGraphics market addresses the need for computational and visual data processing in computing devices that include personal computers, laptops / notebooks, and workstations. We service this market with our CPU, GPU, APU, system-on-chip and chipset product offerings.

Developments in IC design and manufacturing process technologies have resulted in significant advances in microprocessor performance. Since businesses and consumers require greater performance from their computer systems due to the growth of digital data and increasingly sophisticated software applications, multi-core microprocessors offer enhanced overall system performance and efficiency because computing tasks can be spread across two or more processing cores, each of which can execute a task at full speed. Multi-core microprocessors can simultaneously increase performance of a computer system without greatly increasing the total amount of power consumed and the total amount of heat emitted. Businesses and consumers also require computer systems with improved power management technology, which helps them to reduce the power consumption of their computer systems, enables smaller and more portable form factors, and can lower the total cost of ownership.

GPUs perform parallel operations on data to render images for a video display and are essential to presenting computer generated images on that display, decoding and rendering animations and displaying video. The more sophisticated the GPU, the higher the resolution and the faster and smoother moving objects can be displayed on a video display or in a virtual environment (virtual(e.g. virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR)).

In addition to graphics processing, GPUs are used to perform parallel operations on multiple sets of data and are increasingly used to perform vector processing for non-graphics applications that require repetitive computations such as supercomputing,high-performance computing (HPC), deep learning, artificial and machine intelligence, blockchain and various other applications (e.g., cryptocurrency mining and autonomous driving).

An APU is a processing unit that integrates a CPU and a GPU onto one chip (or one piece of silicon), along with, in some cases, other special-purpose components. This integration enhances system performance by “offloading” selected tasks to the best-suited component (i.e., the CPU or the GPU) to optimize component use, increasing the

speed of data flow between the CPU and GPU through shared memory and allowing the GPU to function as both a graphics engine and an application accelerator. Having the CPU and GPU on the same chip also typically improves energy efficiency by, for example, eliminating connections between discrete chips.

Our microprocessors are incorporated into computing platforms, which are a collection of technologies that are designed to work together to provide a more complete computing solution and to enable and advance the computing components.solution. We believe that integrated, balanced computing platforms consisting of microprocessors, chipsets (either as discrete devices or integrated into an SoC) and GPUs (either as discrete GPUs or integrated into an APU or SoC) that work together at the system level bring end users improved system stability, increased performance and enhanced power efficiency. In addition, we believe our customers also benefit from an all-AMD platform (consisting of an APU or CPU, a discrete GPU, and an AMD Fusion Controller Hub chipa chipset when needed), as we are able to optimize interoperability, provide our customers a single

We currently base our microprocessors and chipsets on the x86 instruction set architecture and the AMD Infinity Fabric,Fabric™, which connects an on-chip memory controller and input/output (I/O) channels directly to one or more microprocessor cores. We typically integrate two or more processor cores onto a single die, and each core has its own dedicated cache, which is memory that is located on the semiconductor die, permitting quick access to frequently used data and instructions. Some of our microprocessors have additional levels of cache such as L2, or second-level cache, and L3, or third-level cache, to enable fast data access and high performance.high-performance.

We focus on continually improving the energy efficiency of our products through our design principles and innovations in power management technology. To that end, we offer CPUs, GPUs, APUs, SoCs and chipsets with multiple low power states that are designed to utilize lower clock speeds and voltages to reduce processor power consumption during active and idle times. The use of intelligent, dynamic power management is designed to create lower energy use by allowing compute applications to be completed quickly and efficiently, enabling a return to the ultra-low power idle state.

The semiconductor graphics market addresses the need for improved visual and data processing in various computing devices. Many consumers use PCs as entertainment platforms, in addition to traditional productivity and communications uses, and therefore value a rich visual experience to enable aricher, more visually compelling and immersive experience, and, for these consumers, the PC has evolved from a traditional data processing and communications device to an entertainment platform.experience. As a result, visual realism and graphical display capabilities are key product differentiation elements among computing devices. This has led to increasingthe increased creation and use of processing-intensive multimedia content for computing devices, including playing games, capturing media, content, viewing online videos, editing photos and managing digital content.content on computing devices. In turn, these trends have contributed to higher consumer demand for performance graphics solutions and to manufacturers designing computing devices with these capabilities. Industries that utilize computer assisted design (CAD), that develop content for media and entertainment markets and that generate professional visualizations and renderings can benefit greatly from graphics solutions optimized for the professional graphics market.

Another area of the market for graphics compute is blockchain technology, which is a decentralized digital ledger used to securely store, transmit and process sensitive and valuable data. Currently, the most well-known use case of blockchain is cryptocurrency; however, the number of applications and the potential impact of blockchain technology goes much further.  Blockchain applications are typically performed using specificallyspecially designed application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) or a general purpose CPU or GPU.

Graphics processing is a fundamental component of almost everything we create and can be found in an APU, CPU,GPU, SoC or a combination of a discrete GPU with one of the other foregoing products working in tandem. Our customers generally use our graphics solutions to enable or increase the speed of rendering images, to help improve image resolution and color definition, and increasingly to process massive data sets for cloud and datacenterdata

center applications. We develop our graphics products for use in various computing devices and entertainment platforms, including desktop PCs, notebook PCs, 2-in-1s, All-in-Ones (AIOs), professional workstations, and the datacenter.data center. With each of our graphics products, we have available drivers and supporting software packages that enable the effective use of these products under a variety of operating systems and applications. We have developed RDNA™ 2, a high performing and power efficient graphics architecture, which is the foundation for next-generation PC gaming graphics, the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series S and X consoles. Additionally, the RDNA 2 architecture supports advanced graphics features such as ray tracing, Infinity Cache and variable rate shading. Our hardware and software components are used to implement ray tracing technology to simulate the paths of light rays moving through a movie or game scene, resulting in photorealistic 3D images.

Our APUs deliver visual processing functionality for value and mainstream PCs by integrating a CPU and a GPU on a single chip, while discrete GPUs (which are also known as dGPUs) offer high performancehigh-performance graphics processing across all platforms. AMD Accelerated Parallel Processing or General Purpose GPU (GPGPU) refers to a set of advanced hardware and software technologies that enable discrete AMD GPUs, working in concert with the CPU, to accelerate computational tasks beyond traditional CPU processing by utilizing the vast number of discrete GPU cores while working with the CPU to process information cooperatively. In addition, computing devices with heterogeneous computing features can run computationally-intensive tasks more efficiently, which we believe provides a superior application experience to the end user. Moreover, heterogeneous computing allows for the elevation of the GPU to the same level as the CPU for memory access, queuing, and execution.

Enterprise, Embedded and Semi-Custom

MarketingSales and SalesMarketing

We sell our products through our direct sales force and through independent distributors and sales representatives in both domestic and international markets. Our sales arrangements generally operate on the basis of product forecasts provided by the particular customer, but do not typically include any commitment or requirement for minimum product purchases. We primarily use purchase orders, sales order acknowledgments and contractual agreements as evidence of our sales arrangements. Our agreements typically contain standard terms and conditions covering matters such as payment terms, warranties and indemnities for issues specific to our products.

We generally warrant that our products sold to our customers will conform to our approved specifications and be free from defects in material and workmanship under normal use and conditions for one year. We may also offer oneup to three yearthree-year limited warranties for certain product types, and sometimes provide other warranty periods based on product type and negotiated warranty terms with certain customers.

We market and sell our latest products under the AMD trademark. Our desktop PC microprocessor product brands for microprocessors are AMD Ryzen™, AMD Ryzen™ PRO, Ryzen™ Threadripper™, AMD A-Series, AMD FX™, AMD Athlon™, AMD Athlon™ PRO, and AMD Pro A-Series processors.A-Series. Our notebook and 2-in-1s for microprocessors are AMD Ryzen™ processors with Radeon™ Vega GPUs,Graphics, AMD A-Series, AMD Athlon, AMD Ryzen™Ryzen PRO with Radeon Vega Graphics, AMD Athlon™ PRO with Radeon Vega Graphics and AMD Pro A-Series processors. Our server brands for microprocessors are AMD EPYC™ and AMD Opteron™ processors. We also sell low-power versions of our AMD Opteron, AMD Athlon, , as well as AMD Geode™, AMD Ryzen™,Ryzen, AMD EPYC™,EPYC, AMD R-Series and G-Series processors as embedded processor solutions. Our product brand for the consumer graphics market is AMD Radeon™Radeon graphics, and AMD Embedded Radeon™Radeon graphics is our product brand for the embedded graphics market. Our product brand for professional graphics products are AMD Radeon™Radeon Pro and AMD FirePro™ graphics. Our product brand for data center graphics as well asis Radeon Instinct™ and AMD Instinct accelerators for servers. We also market and sell our chipsets under AMD trademarks.

We market our products through direct marketing and co-marketing programs. In addition, we have cooperative advertising and marketing programs with customers and third parties, including market development programs, pursuant to which we may provide product information, training, marketing materials and funds. Under our co-marketing development programs, eligible customers can use market development funds as reimbursement for advertisements and marketing programs related to our products and third-party systems integrating our products, subject to meeting defined criteria.

Our microprocessor customers consist primarily of original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), large direct datacenters,public cloud service providers, original design manufacturers (ODMs), system integrators and independent distributors in both

domestic and international markets. ODMs provide design and/or manufacturing services to branded and unbranded private label resellers, OEMs and system builders. Customers of our microprocessor products also include online retailers. Our graphics product customers include the foregoing as well as add-in-board manufacturers (AIBs). Large direct datacenters consist of cloud service providers.

Customers of our chipset products consist primarily of PC OEMs, often through ODMs or other contract manufacturers, who build the OEM motherboards, as well as desktop and server motherboard manufacturers who incorporate chipsets into their channel motherboards.

We work closely with our customers to define product features, performance and timing of new products so that the products we are developing meet our customers’ needs. We also employ application engineers to assist our customers in designing, testing and qualifying system designs that incorporate our products. We believe that our commitment to customer service and design support improves our customers’ time-to-market and fosters relationships that encourage customers to use the next generation of our products.

We also work with our customers to create differentiated products that leverage our CPU, GPU and APU technology. Customers of our semi-custom productsCertain customers pay us non-recurring engineering fees for design and development services and a purchase price for the resulting semi-custom products.

Our major customers, Sony Interactive Entertainment LLC and Microsoft Corporation, eachNo single customer accounted for more than 10% of our consolidated net revenue for the year ended December 29, 2018. Sales to Sony Interactive Entertainment LLC and Microsoft Corporation consisted of products from our Enterprise, Embedded and Semi-Custom segment. A loss of any of these customers would have a material adverse effect on our business.26, 2020.

We focus on three types of OEM customers:partners: multi-nationals, selected regional accounts and some local system integrators, who target commercial and consumer end customers of all sizes. Large multi-nationals and regional accounts are the core of our OEM customers.partners’ business; however, a growing focus for us is the Value Added Reseller (VAR) channel which resells OEM systems to the mid-market and the small and medium business (SMB) segments. Our OEM customers include numerous foreign and domestic manufacturers of servers and workstations, desktops, notebooks, PC motherboards and game consoles.

Our authorized channel distributors resell to sub-distributors and mid-sized and smaller OEMs and ODMs. Typically, distributors handle a wide variety of products, and may include those that compete with our products. Distributors typically maintain an inventory of our products. In most instances, our agreements with distributors protect their inventory of our products against price reductions and provide return rights with respect to any product that we have removed from our price book that is not moreless than 12 months older than the manufacturing code date. In addition, some agreements with our distributors may contain standard stock rotation provisions permitting limited levels of product returns.

We offer component-level graphics and chipset products to AIB manufacturers who in turn build and sell board-level products using our technology to system integrators (SIs), retail buyers and sub distributors. Our agreements with AIBs protect their inventory of our products against price reductions. We also sell directly to our SI customers. SIs typically sell from positions of regional or product-based strength in the market. They usually operate on short design cycles and can respond quickly with new technologies. SIs often use discrete graphics solutions as a means to differentiate their products and add value to their customers.

Competition in the Microprocessor and Chipset Market

Intel Corporation has been the market share leader for microprocessors for many years. Intel’s market share, margins and significant financial resources enable it to market its products aggressively, to target our customers and our channel partners with special incentives and to influence customers who do business with us. These aggressive activities have in the past resulted in lower unit sales and a lower average selling price for many of our products and adversely affected our margins and profitability.

Intel could take actions that place our discrete GPUs at a competitive disadvantage, including giving oneA variety of companies provide or more of our competitorshave developed ARM-based microprocessors and platforms. ARM-based designs

are being used in the graphics market, such asPC and server markets, which could lead to further growth and development of the ARM ecosystem. In 2020, Nvidia Corporation, preferential access to its proprietary graphics interface or other useful information. Also, Intel has announced that it had entered into an agreement to acquire ARM Holdings. Nvidia is developing their own high-end discrete GPUs. Intel’s positionour principal competitor in the microprocessor market and integrateddiscrete graphics chipset market, its introduction of competitive new products, its existing relationships with top-tier OEMs and its aggressive marketing and pricing strategies could result in lower unit sales and lower average selling prices for our products, which could have a material adverse effect on us.

Competition in the Graphics Markets

In the graphics market, our competitors include suppliers of discrete graphics, embedded graphics processors and integrated graphics processor (IGP) chipsets. Intel manufactures and sells embedded graphics processors and IGP chipsets and is a dominant competitor with respect to this portion of our business. Higher unit shipments of our APUs and Intel’s integrated graphics may drive computer manufacturers to reduce the number of systems they build paired with discrete graphics components, particularly for notebooks, because they may offer satisfactory graphics performance for most mainstream PC users at a lower cost. Intel could take actions that place our discrete GPUs and IGP chipsets at a competitive disadvantage such as giving one or more of our competitors in the graphics market, such as Nvidia Corporation,providing preferential access to its proprietary graphics interface or other useful information. Also, Intel isinformation to our competitors in the graphics market or restricting access to external companies, while developing its own high-end discrete GPUs.GPUs for both consumer and commercial applications.

Our principal competitor in the discrete graphics market is Nvidia and they are considered the market share leader. Other competitors include a number of smaller companies, which may have greater flexibility to address specific market needs, but less financial resources to do so, especially as weWe believe that the growing complexity of graphics processors and the associated research and development costs represent an increasingly highera high and growing barrier to entry in this market.

We are the market share leader in semi-custom game console products, where graphics performance is critical, and where we compete primarily against Nvidia.

Manufacturing Arrangements and Assembly and Test Facilities

Wafers for our products are delivered from third-party foundries to our assembly, test, assemblymark and packaging partners located in the Asia-Pacific region who package and test our final semiconductor products. We are party to two assembly, test, mark and pack (ATMP) joint ventures (collectively, the ATMP JVs) with Tongfu Fujitsu Microelectronics Co., Ltd. The majority of our ATMP services are provided by the JVs,ATMP JVs.

Intellectual Property and Licensing

We rely on contracts and intellectual property rights to protect our products and technologies from unauthorized third-party copying and use. Intellectual property rights include copyrights, patents, patent applications, trademarks, trade secrets and mask work rights. As of December 29, 2018,26, 2020, we had approximately 5,0004,200 patents in the United States and approximately 9001,000 patent applications pending in the United States. In certain cases, we have filed corresponding applications in foreign jurisdictions. Including United States and foreign matters, we have approximately 10,600 patent matters worldwide consisting of approximately 8,0007,500 issued patents and 2,6003,000 patent applications pending. We expect to file future patent applications in both the United States and abroad on significant inventions, as we deem appropriate. We do not believe that any individual patent, or the expiration of any patent, is or would be material to our business.

As is typical in the semiconductor industry, we have numerous cross-licensing and technology exchange agreements with other companies under which we both transfer and receive technology and intellectual property rights. One such agreement is the cross-license agreement that we entered into with Intel on November 11, 2009. Under the cross-license agreement, we granted to Intel and Intel granted to us, non-exclusive, royalty-free licenses to all of each other’s patents that were first filed no later than November 11, 2014 and each party can exploit these patents anywhere in the world for making and selling certain semiconductor- and electronic-related products. Under the cross-license agreement, Intel has rights to make semiconductor products for third parties, but the third-party product designs are not licensed as a result of such manufacture. We have rights to perform assembly and testing for third parties but not rights to make semiconductor products for third parties. The term of the cross-license agreement continues until the expiration of the last to expire of the licensed patents, unless earlier terminated. A party can terminate the cross-license agreement or the rights and licenses of

Backlog

Sales are made primarily pursuant to purchase orders for current delivery or agreements covering purchases over a period of time. SomeAlthough such orders or agreements may provide visibility into future quarters, they may not necessarily be indicative of actual sales for any succeeding period as some of these orders or agreements may be revised or canceled without penalty. Generally, in light of current industry practice, we do not believe that such orders or agreements provide meaningful backlog figures or are necessarily indicative of actual sales for any succeeding period. With respect to our semi-custom SoC products, our orders and agreements are more stringent resulting in meaningful backlog for the coming quarter.

Seasonality

Our operating results tend to vary seasonally. Historically, first quarter PC product sales areour net revenue has been generally lower than fourth quarter sales and with respect to our semi-custom SoC products for game consoles our sales pattern usually reflects higher sales in the second and third quarters compared tohalf of the year than in the first half of the year, although market conditions and fourth quarters.product transitions could impact these trends.

As of December 29, 2018,26, 2020, we had approximately 10,10012,600 employees in our global workforce. We believe we are at our best when our culture of innovation, creative minds and people from all kinds of backgrounds work together in an engaging and open environment. Areas of focus for us include the following:

We offer our employees opportunities to advance their careers at AMD. We are focused on leadership progression and encourage our employees take advantage of new opportunities. Our manager and leadership development programs are highly rated and we provide specialized development programs for our employees.

Our operations and properties have in the past been and continue to be subject to various United States and foreign laws and regulations, including those relating to materials used in our products and manufacturing processes,

discharge of pollutants into the environment, the treatment, transport, storage and disposal of solid and hazardous wastes and remediation of contamination. These laws and regulations require our suppliers to obtain permits for operations making our products, including the discharge of air pollutants and wastewater. Although our management systems are designed to oversee our suppliers'suppliers’ compliance, we cannot assure you that our suppliers have been or will be at all times in complete compliance with such laws, regulations and permits. If our suppliers violate or fail to comply with any of them, a range of consequences could result, including fines, suspension of production, alteration of manufacturing processes, import/export restrictions, sales limitations, criminal and civil liabilities or other sanctions. We could also be held liable for any and all consequences arising out of exposure to hazardous materials used, stored, released, disposed of by us or located at, under or emanating from our facilities or other environmental or natural resource damage. While we have budgeted for foreseeable associated expenditures, we cannot assure you that future environmental legal requirements will not become more stringent or costly in the future. Therefore, we cannot assure you that our costs of complying with current and future environmental and health and safety laws, and our liabilities arising from past and future releases of, or exposure to, hazardous substances will not have a material adverse effect on us.

Environmental laws are complex, change frequently and have tended to become more stringent over time. For example, the European Union (EU) and China are two among a growing number of jurisdictions that have enacted restrictions on the use of lead and other materials in electronic products. These regulations affect semiconductor devices and packaging. As regulations restricting materials in electronic products continue to increase around the world, there is a risk that the cost, quality and manufacturing yields of products that are subject to these restrictions, may be less favorable compared to products that are not subject to such restrictions, or that the transition to compliant products may not meet customer roadmaps, or produce sudden changes in demand, which may result in excess inventory. A number of jurisdictions including the EU, Australia, California and China are developing or have finalized market entry or public procurement regulations for computers and servers based on ENERGY STAR specifications as well as additional energy consumption limits. There is the potential for certain of our products being excluded from some of these markets which could materially adversely affect us.

Certain environmental laws, including the U.S. Comprehensive, Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act of 1980, or the Superfund Act, impose strict or, under certain circumstances, joint and several liability on current and previous owners or operators of real property for the cost of removal or remediation of hazardous substances and impose liability for damages to natural resources. These laws often impose liability even if the owner or operator did not know of, or was not responsible for, the release of such hazardous substances. These environmental laws also assess liability on

We are named as a responsible party on Superfund clean-up orders for three sites in Sunnyvale, California that are on the National Priorities List. Since 1981, we have discovered hazardous material releases to the groundwater from former underground tanks and proceeded to investigate and conduct remediation at these three sites. The chemicals released into the groundwater were commonly used in the semiconductor industry in the United States in the wafer fabrication process prior to 1979.

In 1991, we received Final Site Clean-up Requirements Orders from the California Regional Water Quality Control Board relating to the three sites. We have entered into settlement agreements with other responsible parties on two of the orders. During the term of such agreements, other parties have agreed to assume most of the foreseeable costs as well as the primary role in conducting remediation activities under the orders. We remain responsible for additional costs beyond the scope of the agreements as well as all remaining costs in the event that the other parties do not fulfill their obligations under the settlement agreements.

Intel Corporation has been the market share leader for microprocessors for many years. Intel’s market share, margins and significant financial resources enable it to market its products aggressively, to target our customers and our channel partners with special incentives and to influence customers who do business with us. These aggressive activities have in the past and are likely in the future to resultresulted in lower unit sales and a lower average selling price for many of our products and adversely affect our margins and profitability.

Intel exerts substantial influence over computer manufacturers and their channels of distribution through various brand and other marketing programs. As a result of Intel’s position in the microprocessor market, Intel has been able to control x86 microprocessor and computer system standards and benchmarks and to dictate the type of products the microprocessor market requires of us. Intel also dominates the computer system platform, which includes core logic chipsets, graphics chips, networking devices (wired and wireless), non-volatile storage and other components necessary to assemble a computer system. Additionally, Intel is able to drive de facto standards and specifications for x86 microprocessors that could cause us and other companies to have delayed access to such standards.

Intel has substantially greater financial resources than we do and accordingly spends substantially greater amounts on marketing and research and development than we do. We expect Intel to maintain its market position and to continue to invest heavily in marketing, research and development, new manufacturing facilities and other technology companies. To the extent Intel manufactures a significantly larger portion of its microprocessor products using more advanced process technologies, or introduces competitive new products into the market before we do, we may be more vulnerable to Intel’s aggressive marketing and pricing strategies for microprocessor products.

We depend on a small number of our microprocessor and APU product requirements, andcustomers for a certainsubstantial portion of our GPU product requirements manufactured at process nodes larger than 7 nanometerbusiness and we expect that a small number of customers will continue to account for a significant part of our revenue in the future. If one of our key customers decides to stop buying our products, or if one of these customers materially reduces its operations or its demand for our products, our business would be materially adversely affected.

While many of our offices around the world remain open, either because the pandemic has been contained in that location or to enable critical on-site business functions in compliance with government guidelines, most of our employees continue to work from GF, with limited exceptions.home until further notice. It is uncertain as to when the measures put in place to attempt to contain the spread of COVID-19 will be lifted or whether there will be additional measures put into place. If GF isCOVID-19 continues to spread or if there are further waves of the virus, we may need to further limit operations or modify our business practices in a manner that may impact our business. If our employees are not able to satisfyperform their job duties due to self-isolation, quarantine, travel restrictions or illness, or are unable to perform them as efficiently at home for an extended period of time, we may not be able to meet our product schedules, roadmaps and customer commitments and we may experience an overall lower productivity of our workforce. We continue to monitor our operations and public health measures implemented by governmental authorities in response to COVID-19. Although some public health measures have eased and a small portion of our employees are at work in certain offices, our efforts to reopen our offices safely may not be successful and could expose our employees to health risks. Even when COVID-19 measures regarding mobility are lifted or modified, our employees’ ability to return to work may delay the return of our full workforce and the resumption of normal business operations.

We have experienced some disruptions to parts of our supply chain as the result of COVID-19. We continue to monitor demand signals as we adjust our supply chain requirements based on changing customer needs and demands. If the supply of our products to customers is delayed, reduced or canceled due to disruptions encountered by our third-party manufacturing, requirements,suppliers or vendors as a result of facility closures, border and port closures, and mobility limitations put on their workforces, it could have a material adverse effect on our business. 

We expect that competition will continue to be intense due to rapid technological changes, frequent product introductions by our competitors or new competitors of products that may provide better performance/experience or that may include additional features that render our products comparatively less competitive. We may also face aggressive pricing by competitors, especially during challenging economic times. In addition, our competitors have significant marketing and sales resources which could increase the competitive environment in a declining market, leading to lower prices and margins. Some competitors may have greater access or rights to complementary technologies, including interface, processor and memory technical information. For instance, with our APU products and other competing solutions with integrated graphics, we believe that demand for additional discrete graphics chips and cards may decrease in the future due to improvements in the quality and performance of integrated graphics. If competitors introduce competitive new products into the market before us, demand for our products could be adversely impacted and our business could be adversely impacted.affected. In addition, Intel is seeking to expand its position in integrated graphics for the PC market with high-end discrete graphics solutions for a broad range of computing segments, which may negatively impact our ability to compete in these computing segments.

The wafer supply agreement (WSA) governs the terms by which we purchase products manufactured by GF. The WSA is in place until 2024. Pursuant to the WSA, we are required to purchase allprofile of our microprocessor and APU product requirements, and asales may be weighted differently during the year. A large portion of our quarterly sales have historically been made in the last month of the quarter. This uneven sales pattern makes prediction of revenue for each financial period difficult and increases the risk of unanticipated variations in quarterly results and financial condition. In addition, our operating results tend to vary seasonally with the markets in which our products are sold. For example, historically, our net revenue has been generally higher in the second half of the year than in the first half of the year, although market conditions and product transitions could impact these trends. Many of the factors that create and affect quarterly and seasonal trends are beyond our control.

Industry-wide fluctuations in the computer marketplace have materially adversely affected us in the past and may materially adversely affect us in the future. A large portion of our Computing and Graphics revenue is focused on the consumer desktop PC and notebook segments, which have in the past experienced a decline driven by, among other factors, the adoption of smaller and other form factors, increased competition and changes in replacement cycles. The success of our semi-custom SoC products is dependent on securing customers for our semi-custom design pipeline and consumer market conditions, including the success of the Sony PlayStation®4, Sony PlayStation®4 Pro, Microsoft® Xbox One™ S and Microsoft® Xbox One™ X game console systems and next generation consoles for Sony and Microsoft, worldwide. In addition, the GPU product requirements from GF manufacturedmarket has at process nodes larger than 7 nanometer (nm), with limited exceptions.times seen elevated demand due to the application of GPU products to cryptocurrency mining. For example, our GPU revenue has been affected in part by the volatility of the cryptocurrency mining market. Demand for cryptocurrency has changed and is likely to continue to change quickly. For example, China and South Korea have instituted restrictions on cryptocurrency trading and the valuations of the currencies, and corresponding interest in mining of such currencies are subject to significant fluctuations. Alternatively, countries may create, or in the case of China are creating, their own cryptocurrencies or equivalents that could also impact interest in mining. If GF iswe are unable to achieve anticipated manufacturing yields, manufacturemanage the risks related to the volatility of the cryptocurrency mining market, our products on a timely basis at competitive prices or meet our capacity requirements, then we may experience supply shortages for certain products or increased costs and ourGPU business could be materially adversely affected.

We rely on a combination of the WSA applicableprotections provided by contracts, including confidentiality and nondisclosure agreements, copyrights, patents, trademarks and common law rights, such as trade secrets, to wafer purchases at the 12 nm technology node and above by us for the period commencing January 1, 2019 and continuing through March 1, 2024. Ifprotect our intellectual property. However, we fail to meet the agreed wafer purchase target during a calendar yearcannot assure you that we will be requiredable to payadequately protect our technology or other intellectual property from third-party infringement or from misappropriation in the United States and abroad. Any patent licensed by us or issued to GFus could be challenged, invalidated or circumvented or rights granted there under may not provide a competitive advantage to us. Also, due to measures to slow down the outbreak of COVID-19, various patent offices and courts have been adversely impacted and there is a potential for delay or disruptions that might affect certain of our patent rights.

We have costs, assets and liabilities that are denominated in foreign currencies. As a consequence, movements in exchange rates could cause our foreign currency denominated expenses to increase as a percentage of revenue, affecting our profitability and cash flows. Whenever we believe appropriate, we hedge a portion of our short-term foreign currency exposure to protect against fluctuations in currency exchange rates. We determine our total foreign currency exposure using projections of long-term expenditures for items such as payroll. We cannot assure you that these activities will be effective in reducing foreign exchange rate exposure. Failure to do so could have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations and cash flow. In addition, the differencemajority of our product sales are denominated in U.S. dollars. Fluctuations in the exchange rate between our actual wafer purchasesthe U.S. dollar and the applicable annual purchase target. Iflocal currency can cause increases or decreases in the cost of our actual wafer requirements are less thanproducts in the numberlocal currency of wafers requiredsuch customers. An appreciation of the U.S. dollar relative to meet the applicable annual wafer purchase target, welocal currency could have excess inventory or higher inventory unit costs, bothreduce sales of which may adversely impact our gross marginproducts.

Operational and our results of operations.

We rely on third-party wafer foundries to fabricate the silicon wafers for all of our products. For the production of wafers for certain products, including the production of all our 7 nanometer (nm) products, we use Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (TSMC). We purchase wafers for all our CPU and APU products, and wafers for a certain portion of our GPU products manufactured at process nodes larger than 7 nm, with limited exceptions, from GLOBALFOUNDRIES, Inc. (GF). We also rely on third-party manufacturers to assemble, test, mark and pack (ATMP) our products. It is important to have reliable relationships with all of these third-party manufacturing suppliers to ensure adequate product supply to respond to customer demand.

We cannot guarantee that these manufacturers or our other third-party manufacturing suppliers will be able to meet our near-term or long-term manufacturing requirements. If we experience supply constraints from our third-party manufacturing suppliers, we may be required to allocate the affected products amongst our customers, which could have a material adverse effect on our relationships with these customers and on our financial condition. In addition, if we are unable to meet customer demand due to fluctuating or late supply from our manufacturing suppliers, it could result in lost sales and have a material adverse effect on our business. For example, if TSMC is not able to manufacture wafers for our 7 nm products in sufficient quantities to meet customer demand, it could have a material adverse effect on our business.

We do not have long-term commitment contracts with some of our third-party manufacturing suppliers. We obtain some of these manufacturing services on a purchase order basis and these manufacturers are not required to provide us with any specified minimum quantity of product beyond the quantities in an existing purchase order. Accordingly, we depend on these suppliers to allocate to us a portion of their manufacturing capacity sufficient to meet our needs, to produce products of acceptable quality and at acceptable manufacturing yields and to deliver those products to us on a timely basis and at acceptable prices. The manufacturers we use also fabricate wafers and ATMP products for other companies, including certain of our competitors. They could choose to prioritize capacity for other customers, increase the prices that they charge us on short notice or reduce or eliminate deliveries to us, which could have a material adverse effect on our business.

Other risks associated with our dependence on third-party manufacturers include limited control over delivery schedules and quality assurance, lack of capacity in periods of excess demand, misappropriation of our intellectual property, dependence on several small undercapitalized subcontractors, and limited ability to manage inventory and parts. Moreover, if any of our third-party manufacturers suffer any damage to facilities, lose benefits under material agreements, experience power outages, lack sufficient capacity to manufacture our products, encounter financial difficulties, are unable to secure necessary raw materials from their suppliers, or suffer any other disruption or reduction in efficiency, or experience uncertain social economic or political circumstances or conditions, we may encounter supply delays or disruptions. If we are unable to secure sufficient or reliable supplies of products, our ability to meet customer demand may be adversely affected and this could materially affect our business.

If we transition the production of some of our products to new manufacturers, we may experience delayed product introductions, lower yields or poorer performance of our products. If we experience problems with product quality or are unable to secure sufficient capacity from a particular third-party manufacturer, or if we for other reasons cease utilizing one of those suppliers, we may be unable to secure an alternative supply for any specific product in a short time frame. We could experience significant delays in the shipment of our products if we are required to find alternative third-party manufacturers, which could have a material adverse effect on our business.

We are a party to a wafer supply agreement (WSA) with GF that governs the terms by which we purchase products manufactured by GF and is in place until 2024. Pursuant to the WSA, we are required to purchase wafers for all of our CPU and APU product requirements and wafers for a certain portion of our GPU product requirements from GF manufactured at process nodes larger than 7 nm, with limited exceptions. We have agreed to minimum annual wafer purchase targets through 2021. If we fail to meet the agreed wafer purchase target during a calendar year, we will be required to pay to GF a portion of the difference between our actual wafer purchases and the applicable annual purchase target. If our actual wafer requirements are less than the number of wafers required to meet the applicable annual wafer purchase target, we could have excess inventory or higher inventory unit costs, both of which may adversely impact our gross margin and our results of operations. We could experience significant delays

We are party to two ATMP joint ventures (collectively, the ATMP JVs) with Tongfu Fujitsu Microelectronics Co., Ltd. The majority of our ATMP services are provided by the ATMP JVs and there is no guarantee that the ATMP JVs will be able to fulfill our long-term ATMP requirements. If we are unable to meet customer demand due to fluctuating or late supply from the ATMP JVs, it could result in lost sales and have a material adverse effect on our business.

Semiconductor manufacturing yields are a result of both product design and process technology, which is typically proprietary to the manufacturer, and low yields can result from design failures, process technology failures or a combination of both. Our third-party foundries including GF, are responsible for the process technologies used to fabricate silicon wafers. If our third-party foundries experience manufacturing inefficiencies or encounter disruptions, errors or difficulties during production, we may fail to achieve acceptable yields or experience product delivery delays. We cannot be certain that our third-party foundries will be able to develop, obtain or successfully implement leading-edge process technologies needed to manufacture future generations of our products profitably or on a timely basis or that our competitors will not develop new technologies, products

Any decrease in manufacturing yields could result in an increase in per unit costs, which would adversely impact our gross margin and/or force us to allocate our reduced product supply amongst our customers, which could harm our relationships and reputation with our customers and materially adversely affect our business.

Our success depends to a significant extent on the development, qualification, implementation and acceptance of

new product designs and improvements that provide value to our customers. Our ability to develop, qualify and distribute, and have manufactured, new products and related technologies to meet evolving industry requirements, at prices acceptable to our customers and on a timely basis are significant factors in determining our competitiveness in our target markets. As consumers have new product feature preferences or have different requirements than those consumers in the PC market, PC sales could be negatively impacted, which could adversely impact our business. Our product roadmap includes our next generation AMD Ryzen,Ryzen™, AMD RadeonRadeon™ and AMD EPYCEPYC™ processors using 7 nm process technology. We cannot assure you that our efforts to execute our product roadmap will result in innovative products and technologies that provide value to our customers. If we fail to or are delayed in developing, qualifying or shipping new products or technologies that provide value to our customers and address these new trends or if we fail to predict which new form factors consumers will adopt and adjust our business accordingly, we may lose competitive positioning, which could cause us to lose market share and require us to discount the selling prices of our products. Although we make substantial investments in research and development, we cannot be certain that we will be able to develop, obtain or successfully implement new products and technologies on a timely basis or that they will be well-received by our customers. Moreover, our investments in new products and technologies involve certain risks and uncertainties and could disrupt our ongoing business. New investments may not generate sufficient revenue, may incur unanticipated liabilities and may divert our limited resources and distract management from our current operations. We cannot be certain that our ongoing investments in new products and technologies will be successful, will meet our expectations and will not adversely affect our reputation, financial condition and operating results.

Delays in developing, qualifying or shipping new products can also cause us to miss our customers’ product design windows or, in some cases, breach contractual obligations or cause us to pay penalties. If our customers do not include our products in the initial design of their computer systems or products, they will typically not use our products in their systems or products until at least the next design configuration. The process of being qualified for inclusion in a customer’s system or product can be lengthy and could cause us to further miss a cycle in the demand of end-users, which also could result in a loss of market share and harm our business. We also depend on the success and timing of our customers’ platform launches. If our customers delay their product launches or if our customers do not effectively market their platforms with our products, it could result in a delay in bringing our products to market and cause us to miss a cycle in the demand of end-users, which could materially adversely affect our business. In addition, market demand requires that products incorporate new features and performance standards on an industry-wide basis. Over the life of a specific product, the sale price is typically reduced over time. The introduction of new products and enhancements to existing products is necessary to maintain the overall corporate average selling price. If we are unable to introduce new products with sufficiently high sale prices or to increase unit sales volumes capable of offsetting the reductions in the sale prices of existing products over time, our business could be materially adversely affected.

The revenue that we receive from our semi-custom SoC products is in the form of non-recurring engineering fees charged to third parties for design and development services and revenue received in connection with sales of our semi-custom SoC products to these third parties. As a result, our ability to generate revenue from our semi-custom products depends on our ability to secure customers for our semi-custom design pipeline, our customers’ desire to pursue the project and our semi-custom SoC products being incorporated into those customer’s products. Any revenue from sales of our semi-custom SoC products is directly related to sales of the third-party’s products and reflective of their success in the market. Moreover, we have no control over the marketing efforts of these third parties, and we cannot make any assurances that sales of their products will be successful in current or future years. Consequently, the semi-custom SoC product revenue expected by us may not be fully realized and our operating results may be adversely affected.

The products that we sell are complex and may be subject to security vulnerabilities that could result in, among other things, the loss, corruption, theft or misuse of confidential data or system performance issues. Our efforts to prevent and address security vulnerabilities may decrease performance, be only partially effective or not successful at all. We may also depend on third parties, such as customers, vendors and end users, to deploy our mitigations or create their own, and they may delay, decline or modify the implementation of such mitigations. Our relationships with our customers could be adversely affected as some of our customers may stop purchasing our products, reduce or delay future purchases of our products, or use competing products. Any of these actions by our customers could adversely affect our revenue. We also are subject to claims and litigation related to side-channelSpectre side-

channel exploits such as Spectre, and may face additional claims or litigation for future vulnerabilities. Actual or perceived security vulnerabilities of our products may subject us to adverse publicity, damage to our brand and reputation, and could materially harm our business or financial results.

It is often difficult to anticipate or immediately detect such incidents and the damage caused by such incidents. These data breaches and any unauthorized access, misuse or disclosure of our information or intellectual property could compromise our intellectual property and expose sensitive business information. Cyber-attacks on us or our customers, business partners or third partythird-party providers could also cause us to incur significant remediation costs, result in product development delays, disrupt key business operations and divert attention of management and key information technology resources. These incidents could also subject us to liability, expose us to significant expense and cause significant harm to our reputation and business. In addition, we are currently subject to claims and could be subject to additional claims in the future for damages resulting from loss of data from alleged vulnerabilities in the security of our processors.

We also maintain confidential and personally identifiable information about our workers.workers and consumers. The integrityconfidentiality and protectionintegrity of our worker and consumer data is criticalimportant to our business and our workers and consumers have a high expectation that we will adequately protect their personal information.

We anticipate an increase inongoing and increasing costs related to:

We often partner with third-party providers for certain worker services and we may provide certain limited worker information to such third parties based on the scope of the services provided to us. However, if these third parties fail to adopt or adhere to adequate data security practices, or in the event of a breach of their networks, our workers’ data may be improperly accessed, used or disclosed.

A breach of data privacy is likely tomay cause significant disruption of our business operations. Failure to adequately maintain and update our security systems could materially adversely affect our operations and our ability to maintain worker confidence. Failure to prevent unauthorized access to electronic and other confidential information, IT outages, data loss and data breaches could materially adversely affect our financial condition, our competitive position and operating results.

We typically sell our products pursuant to individual purchase orders. We generally do not have long-term supply arrangements with our customers or minimum purchase requirements except that orders generally must be for standard pack quantities. Generally, our customers may cancel orders for standard products more than 30 days prior to shipment without incurring significant fees. We base our inventory levels in part on customers’ estimates of demand for their products, which may not accurately predict the quantity or type of our products that our customers will want in the future or ultimately end up purchasing. Our ability to forecast demand is even further complicated when our products are sold indirectly through downstream channel distributors and customers, as our forecasts for demand are then based on estimates provided by multiple parties throughout the downstream channel.

Many of our markets are characterized by short product lifecycles, which can lead to rapid obsolescence and price erosion. In addition, our customers may change their inventory practices on short notice for any reason. We may build inventories during periods of anticipated growth, and the cancellation or deferral of product orders or overproduction due to failure of anticipated orders to materialize could result in excess or obsolete inventory, which could result in write-downs of inventory and an adverse effect on gross margins.

Factors that may result in excess or obsolete inventory, which could result in write-downs of the value of our inventory, a reduction in the average selling price or a reduction in our gross margin include:

In the design and development of new and enhanced products, we rely on third-party intellectual property such as development and testing tools for software and hardware. Furthermore, certain product features may rely on intellectual property acquired from third parties. The design requirements necessary to meet customer demand for more features and greater functionality from semiconductor products may exceed the capabilities of the third-party intellectual property or development or testing tools available to us. If the third-party intellectual property that we use becomes unavailable, is not available with required functionality andor performance in the time frame, manufacturing technology, or price point needed for our new products or fails to produce designs that meet customer demands, our business could be materially adversely affected.

We depend on third-party companies for the design, manufacture and supply of motherboards, graphics cards, software (e.g., BIOS, operating systems, drivers), memory and other components that our customers utilize to support and/or use our microprocessor, GPU and APU offerings. We also rely on our add-in-board (AIB) partners to support our GPU and APU products. In addition, our microprocessors are not designed to function with motherboards and chipsets designed to work with Intel microprocessors. If the designers, manufacturers, AIBs and suppliers of motherboards, graphics cards, software, memory and other components decreasecease or reduce their design, manufacture or production of current or future products that are based on or support for our product offerings,products, our business could be materially adversely affected.

Our ability to innovate beyond the x86 instruction set controlled by Intel depends partially on Microsoft designing and developing its operating systems to run on or support our x86-based microprocessor products. With respect to our graphics products, we depend in part on Microsoft to design and develop its operating system to run on or support our graphics products. Similarly, the success of our products in the market, such as our APU products, is dependent on independent software providers designing and developing software to run on our products. If Microsoft does not continue to design and develop its operating systems so that they work with our x86 instruction sets or does not continue to develop and maintain their operating systems to support our graphics products, independent software providers may forego designing their software applications to take advantage of our innovations and customers may not purchase PCs with our products. In addition, some software drivers licensed for use with our products are certified by Microsoft. If Microsoft did not certify a driver, or if we otherwise fail to retain the support of Microsoft or other software vendors, our ability to market our products would be materially adversely affected.

We market and sell our products directly and through third-party distributors and AIB partners pursuant to agreements that can generally be terminated for convenience by either party upon prior notice to the other party. These agreements are non-exclusive and permit both our distributors and AIB partners to offer our competitors’ products. We are dependent on our distributors and AIB partners to supplement our direct marketing and sales efforts. If any significant distributor or AIB partner or a substantial number of our distributors or AIB partners

terminated their relationship with us, decided to market our competitors’ products over our products or decided not to market our products at all, our ability to bring our products to market would be impacted and we would be materially adversely affected. In addition, if we are unable to collect accounts receivable from our significant distributors and/

Additionally, distributors and AIB partners typically maintain an inventory of our products. In most instances, our agreements with distributors protect their inventory of our products against price reductions, as well as provide return rights for any product that we have removed from our price book and that is not more than 12 months older than the manufacturing date. Some agreements with our distributors also contain standard stock rotation provisions permitting limited levels of product returns. Our agreements with AIB partners protect their inventory of our products against price reductions. In the event of a significant decline in the price of our products, the price protection rights we offer would materially adversely affect us because our revenue and corresponding gross margin would decline.

We rely upon a number of internal business processes and information systems to support key business functions, and the efficient operation of these processes and systems is critical to our business. Our business processes and information systems need to be sufficiently scalable to support the growth of our business and may require modifications or upgrades that expose us to a number of operational risks. As such, our information systems will continually evolve and adapt in order to meet our business needs. These changes may be costly and disruptive to our operations and could impose substantial demands on management time.

These changes may also require changes in our information systems, modification of internal control procedures and significant training of employees and third-party resources. We continuously work on simplifying our information systems and applications through consolidation and standardization efforts. There can be no assurance that our business and operations will not experience any disruption in connection with this transition. Our information technology systems, and those of third-party information technology providers or business partners, may also be vulnerable to damage or disruption caused by circumstances beyond our control including catastrophic events, power anomalies or outages, natural disasters, viruses or malware, cyber-

In addition, as our IT environment continues to evolve, we are embracing new ways of communicating and sharing data internally and externally with customers and partners using methods such as mobility and the cloud that can promote business efficiency. However, these practices can also result in a more distributed IT environment, making it more difficult for us to maintain visibility and control over internal and external users, and meet scalability and administrative requirements. If our security controls cannot keep pace with the speed of these changes, or if we are not able to meet regulatory and compliance requirements, our business would be materially adversely affected.

Our products may not be fully compatible with some or all industry-standard software and hardware. Further, we may be unsuccessful in correcting any such compatibility problems in a timely manner. If our customers are unable to achieve compatibility with software or hardware, we could be materially adversely affected. In addition, the mere announcement of an incompatibility problem relating to our products could have a material adverse effect on our business.

Products as complex as those we offer may contain defects or failures when first introduced or when new versions or enhancements to existing products are released. We cannot assure you that, despite our testing procedures, errors will not be found in new products or releases after commencement of commercial shipments in the future, which could result in loss of or delay in market acceptance of our products, material recall and replacement costs, loss of revenue, writing down the inventory of defective products, the diversion of the attention of our engineering personnel from product development efforts, defending against litigation related to defective products or related liabilities, including property damage, personal injury, damage to our reputation in the industry and loss of data or

intangible property, and could adversely affect our relationships with our customers. In addition, we may have difficulty identifying the end customers of the defective products in the field. As a result, we could incur substantial costs to implement modifications to correct defects. Any of these problems could materially adversely affect our business.

We could be subject to potential product liability claims if one of our products causes, or merely appears to have caused, an injury, whether tangible or intangible. Claims may be made by consumers or others selling our products, and we may be subject to claims against us even if an alleged injury is due to the actions of others. A product liability claim, recall or other claim with respect to uninsured liabilities or for amounts in excess of insured liabilities could have a material adverse effect on our business.

Our ability to meet customer demand for our products depends, in part, on our ability to deliver the products our customers want on a timely basis. Accordingly, we rely on our supply chain for the manufacturing, distribution and fulfillment of our products. As we continue to grow our business, expand to high-growth adjacent markets, acquire new customers and strengthen relationships with existing customers, the efficiency of our supply chain will become increasingly important because many of our customers tend to have specific requirements for particular products, and specific time-frames in which they require delivery

We rely on third-party providers to operate our regional product distribution centers and to manage the transportation of our work-in-process and finished products among our facilities, to our manufacturing suppliers and to our customers. In addition, we rely on third parties to provide certain information technology services to us, including help desk support, desktop application services, business and software support applications, server and storage administration, datacenterdata center operations, database administration and voice, video and remote access. We cannot guarantee that these providers will fulfill their respective responsibilities in a timely manner in accordance with the contract terms, in which case our internal operations and the distribution of our products to our customers could be materially adversely affected. Also, we cannot guarantee that our contracts with these third-party providers will be renewed, in which case we would have to transition these functions in-house or secure new providers, which could have a material adverse effect on our business if the transition is not executed appropriately.

We market and sell our products directly to OEMs and through authorized third-party distributors. From time to time, our products are diverted from our authorized distribution channels and are sold on the “gray market.” Gray market products result in shadow inventory that is not visible to us, thus making it difficult to forecast demand accurately. Also, when gray market products enter the market, we and our distribution channels compete with these heavily discounted gray market products, which adversely affects demand for our products and negatively impactimpacts our margins. In addition, our inability to control gray market activities could result in customer satisfaction issues because any time products are purchased outside our authorized distribution channels there is a risk that our customers are buying counterfeit or substandard products, including products that may have been altered, mishandled or damaged, or are used products represented as new.

If we cannot adequately protectrealize our technologydeferred tax assets, our results of operations could be adversely affected.

We are subject to income tax, indirect tax or other intellectual propertytax claims by tax agencies in jurisdictions in which we conduct business. Significant judgment is required in determining our worldwide provision for income taxes. Tax laws are dynamic and subject to change as new laws are passed and new interpretations of the United Stateslaw are issued or applied. Any changes to tax laws could have a material adverse effect on our tax obligations and abroad, through patents, copyrights, trade secrets, trademarkseffective tax rate.

In the ordinary course of our business, there are many transactions and calculations where the ultimate income tax, indirect tax, or other measures,tax determination is uncertain. Although we may lose a competitive advantage and incur significant expenses.

From time to time, we are a defendant or plaintiff in various legal actions. For example, as described in Note 1917 of our consolidated financial statements, we have been subject to certain claims concerning federal securities laws and corporate governance. Our products are purchased by and/or used by consumers, which could increase our exposure to consumer actions such as product liability claims and consumer class action claims, including those described in Note 1917 of our consolidated financial statements. On occasion, we receive claims that individuals were allegedly exposed to substances used in our former semiconductor wafer manufacturing facilities and that this alleged exposure caused harm. Litigation can involve complex factual and legal questions, and its outcome is uncertain. It is possible that if a claim is successfully asserted against us, including the claims described in Note 1917 of our consolidated financial statements, it could result in the payment of damages that could be material to our business.

With respect to intellectual property litigation, from time to time, we have been notified of, or third parties may bring or have brought, actions against us and/or against our customers based on allegations that we are infringing the intellectual property rights of others, contributing to or inducing the infringement of the intellectual property rights of others, improperly claiming ownership of intellectual property or otherwise improperly using the intellectual property of others. If any such claims are asserted, we may seek to obtain a license under the third parties’ intellectual property rights. We cannot assure you that we will be able to obtain all of the necessary licenses on satisfactory terms, if at all. These parties may file lawsuits against us or our customers seeking damages (potentially up to and including treble damages) or an injunction against the sale of products that incorporate allegedly infringed intellectual property or against the operation of our business as presently conducted, which could result in our having to stop the sale of some of our products or to increase the costs of selling some of our products or which could damage our reputation. The award of damages, including material royalty payments, or other types of damages, or the entry of an injunction against the manufacture and sale of some or all of our products could have a material adverse effect on us. We could decide, in the alternative, to redesign our products or to resort to litigation to challenge such claims. Such challenges could be extremely expensive and time-consuming regardless of their merit, could cause delays in product release or shipment and/or could have a material adverse effect on us. We cannot assure you that litigation related to our intellectual property rights or the intellectual property rights of others can always be avoided or successfully concluded.

Even if we were to prevail, any litigation could be costly and time-consuming and would divert the attention of our management and key personnel from our business operations, which could have a material adverse effect on us.

Our operations and properties have in the past been and continue to be subject to various United States and foreign laws and regulations, including those relating to materials used in our products and manufacturing processes, discharge of pollutants into the environment, the treatment, transport, storage and disposal of solid and hazardous wastes and remediation of contamination. These laws and regulations require our suppliers to obtain permits for operations making our products, including the discharge of air pollutants and wastewater. Although our management systems are designed to oversee our suppliers’ compliance, we cannot assure you that our suppliers have been or will be at all times in complete compliance with such laws, regulations and permits. If our suppliers violate or fail to comply with any of them, a range of consequences could result, including fines, suspension of production, alteration of manufacturing processes, import/export restrictions, sales limitations, criminal and civil liabilities or other sanctions. Such non-compliance from our manufacturing suppliers could result in disruptions in supply, higher sourcing costs, and/or reputational damage for us.

Environmental laws are complex, change frequently and have tended to become more stringent over time. For example, the European Union (EU) and China are two among a growing number of jurisdictions that have enacted restrictions on the use of lead and other materials in electronic products. These regulations affect semiconductor devices and packaging. As regulations restricting materials in electronic products continue to increase around the world, there is a risk that the cost, quality and manufacturing yields of products that are subject to these restrictions may be less favorable compared to products that are not subject to such restrictions, or that the transition to compliant products may not meet customer roadmaps, or produce sudden changes in demand, which may result in excess inventory. A number of jurisdictions including the EU, Australia, California and China are developing or have finalized market entry or public procurement regulations for computers and servers based on ENERGY STAR specifications as well as additional energy consumption limits. There is the potential for certain of our products being excluded from some of these markets which could materially adversely affect us.

Certain environmental laws, including the United States Comprehensive, Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act of 1980, or the Superfund Act, impose strict or, under certain circumstances, joint and several liability on current and previous owners or operators of real property for the cost of removal or remediation of hazardous substances and impose liability for damages to natural resources. These laws often impose liability even if the owner or operator did not know of, or was not responsible for, the release of such hazardous substances. These environmental laws also assess liability on persons who arrange for hazardous substances to be sent to disposal or treatment facilities when such facilities are found to be contaminated. Such persons can be responsible for cleanup costs even if they never owned or operated the contaminated facility. We have been named as a responsible party at three Superfund sites in Sunnyvale, California. Although we have not yet been, we could be named a potentially responsible party at other Superfund or contaminated sites in the future. In addition, contamination that has not yet been identified could exist at our other facilities.

Under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010, the SEC adopted disclosure and reporting requirements for companies that use “conflict” minerals originating from the Democratic Republic of Congo or adjoining countries. We continue to incur additional costs associated with complying with these requirements, such as costs related to developing internal controls for the due diligence process, determining the source of any conflict minerals used in our products, auditing the process and reporting to our customers and the SEC. In addition to the SEC regulation, the European Union, China and other jurisdictions are developing new policies focused on conflict minerals that may impact and increase the cost of our compliance program. Also, since our supply chain is complex, we may face reputational challenges if we are unable to sufficiently verify the origins of the subject minerals. Moreover, we are likely to encounter challenges to satisfy those customers who require that all of the components of our products arebe certified as “conflict free.” If we cannot satisfy these customers, they may choose a competitor’s products.

The United States federal government has issued new policies for federal procurement focused on eradicating the practice of forced labor and human trafficking. Germany’s federal procurement office, in collaboration with the Bitkom trade association, issued new supply chain labor requirements. In addition, the United Kingdom, Australia and the State of California have issued laws that require us to disclose our policy and practices for identifying and eliminating forced labor and human trafficking in our supply chain. Several customers as well as the Responsible Business Alliance have also issued expectations to eliminate these practices that may impact us. While we have a policy and management systems to identify and avoid these practices in our supply chain, we cannot guarantee that our suppliers will always be in conformance to these laws and expectations. We may face enforcement liability and reputational challenges if we are unable to sufficiently meet these expectations. Moreover, we are likely to encounter challenges with customers if we cannot satisfy their forced and trafficked labor polices and they may choose a competitor’s product.

As of December 29, 2018,26, 2020, we leased approximately 2.472.46 million square feet of space for research and development, engineering, administrative and warehouse use, including our headquarters in Santa Clara, California, our principal administrative facilities in Austin, Texas, our design center in Shanghai, China, our main facility with respect to graphics and chipset products located in Markham, Ontario, Canada, two design centers in Bangalore and Hyderabad, India, and a number of smaller regional sales offices located in commercial centers near customers, principally in the United States, Europe, Asia and Latin America, Europe and Asia.America. These leases expire at varying dates through 2028, although some of these leases include optional renewals. We occupy 220,000approximately 251,000 square

We currently do not anticipate difficulty in either retaining occupancy of any of our facilities through lease renewals prior to expiration or through month-to-month occupancy or replacing them with equivalent facilities.

We believe that our existing facilities are suitable and adequate for our present purposes and that the productive capacity of such facilities is substantially being utilized or we have plans to utilize such capacity.

ITEM 3. LEGAL PROCEEDINGS

PART II

Advanced Micro Devices, S&P 500 Index and S&P 500 Semiconductor Index

The following graph shows a five-year comparison of cumulative total return on our common stock, the S&P 500 Index and the S&P 500 Semiconductor Index from December 28, 201326, 2015 through December 29, 2018.26, 2020. The past performance of our common stock is no indication of future performance.