Microprocessor manufacturer AMD celebrates their 40th anniversary today and as part of the celebrations, they’re holding a couple of contests.

May 1, 2009, marks AMD’s 40th anniversary. Formed by Jerry Sanders and seven co-founders in 1969, AMD is a company with a rich and colorful history. In the past 40 years, AMD has transformed from a second-source supplier that worked within the confines of other companies’ designs, to an innovator that has helped drive the market forward and kept competition alive and thriving in one of the most important technology sectors. AMD takes great pride in our role of igniting next-generation technology solutions, as well as our ability to see where customer and end-user needs are headed next and then collaborate with the industry accordingly.

The two contests being held are the Video Contest and the Photo Contest.

The Video Contest is for the AMD community and you need to create a video up to 60 seconds in length, wishing AMD a Happy 40th Anniversary. The video needs to be uploaded to YouTube and the link emailed to them. Three lucky  ‘grand prize’ winners will receive the ATI Radeon HD 4890 graphics card, and 40 ‘first place’ winners will receive the ATI Radeon 4650 graphics card.

The second part of the contest, the Photo Contest, participants need to send their most creative expression of love of AMD. Five “grand prize” photo submissions will each get a new AMD Phenom™ II X4 Black Edition processor and an ASUS M4A78T-E motherboard. Eight “first place” photo submissions will each receive a new AMD Athlon 7850 processor and a Gigabyte GA-MA780G-UD3H motherboard.

How to Enter:
To enter, email your photo to us at amdcontests@bitepr.com. Be sure to check the contest rules found here for eligibility and more information about your photo submission and the judging criteria. Be sure to submit your entries by 5pm PDT on Friday, June 19, 2009.

Eligibility:
Sadly, the contest is open to United States residents only, 18 years and older.

I’d like to personally wish AMD a very happy 40th anniversary. May they come out with more amazing products like the ATI Radeon 4770, and the Opteron processors that we fanbois so loved years back.

P.S. – this article was written on an AMD powered machine.

Remember when McLaren employee Mike Coughlan had been caught in possession of sensitive Ferrari information? This is the exact scenario in the tech world.

An ex-design engineer at Intel, named Biswahoman Pani, has been accused of copying Intel design documents when he shifted to main rival AMD.

The man has not been arrested yet, and AMD has been let off the hook as the FBI found no evidence that AMD had encouraged or even knew about the espionage.

From The Inquirer:

According to the filing in the Boston US District Court, 13 files containing over 100 pages of top secret documentation and 19 drawings were found during a search of Pani’s house in July.

The FBI was tipped off by another Intel employee who, on discovering Pani’s planned move to the competition, ordered a log of his system access before he left.

On a side note, I supported the Prancing Horse when the scandal happened. In this scandal, I’m with AMD all the way. What do you think?