Dresden (Germany) - AMD is on a roll these days. Market shares, according to analysts, are climbing and even sales hold up to the firm's marketing as the company was able to outsell Intel in US retail in September. Last week, the company officially opened its second chip factory in Dresden, Germany.

The new Fab 36 is located next to the firm's Fab 30 and was built to produce silicon-on-insulator (SOI) processors in 65 nm technology on 300 mm wafers - while Fab 30 cranks out 90 nm chips on 200 mm wafers.

Fab 36's clean room area for standardized mechanical interface systems (SMIF) measures 144,000 sqft. AMD plans to ship the first processors built in the new factory by the end of 2006. By 2008, more than 100 million processors will be built in the Fab 36 every year, AMD said.

Fab 36 on the left, Fab 30 on the right

Construction of the $2.5 billion factory began in November of 2003. AMD expects to employ about 1000 people in the new building - in addition to the 1000 who already work in Fab 30. AMD's total investment in the Dresden fabs is about $5 billion, which was sponsored with a total of $900 million in tax incentives. The naming of AMD's fabs reflects a relationship to the founding year of AMD in 1969: Fab 36 begins opens in the 36th operational year of AMD. Fab 30 was opened in 1999.