http://www.guru3d.com/news-story/amd-might-sell-ati-and-split-up-as-separate-companies.html 40% stock price decline in less than a year, very thin cash flow for R&D, i'm not sure how they'll survive and what will happen to their products should they collapse. I believe they could sell the ATI part to Intel if they want to split (why not) but they have to make strong decisions quick because their vitals aren't good.
I forgot exactly what it was with that report, but I think it was found to be baseless and something started by one of the American financial firms to try and manipulate stocks.
AMD basically decided they didn't want to compete with Intel at some point so they stopped trying to make high-end CPUs. But then they also, apparently, didn't want to chase mobile/phone computing. And they just kept on making really hot chips. (Even though they had a clear advantage in the AMD64 days!). So they're just sort of making crappy CPUs for budget laptops/desktops that people forgo to buy tablets. Spinning off Global Foundries was the beginning of a slow sputtering end. Lots of failure to really capitalize on things when it was going their way. That's my theory anyway.