I think Intel would pounce and eat them and ATI up, get broken by the justice department, and we would have 3 companies making GPU's! (again)

Which 3 companies? AMD owns ATI, so what are you saying? Are you thinking that AMD would spin off the GPU department back to what was formally know as ATI? I don't think so. And currently there is only 2 right now, nVidia and AMD. If AMD went bankrupt than there would only be 2 major descrete manufacturers, maybe, and that would be AMD and nVidia still.

I don't think OEMs, justice department, FTC, EU, and other corporate / government entities will allow AMD to go bankrupt. There is too much to risk for AMD to disappear from the market.

Not going to happen.
First off, AMD isn't even really running a deficit. They are hiding a lot of income by buying back thier own shares.
They are selling ever chip they make.
On the other hand, if things did go really wrong, The could go into recievership, seek bancruptcy protection, pay off thier debts on pennies on the dollar, and just keep keeping on.
They have a huge pile of assets that have been depreciated to zero, but have huge resale value.
AMD aint going nowhere for a long time.

There are already "three GPU companies":

1. ATI
2. nVidia
3. Intel - yeah integrated, but they make up the vast majority of video chips currently sold

Except the Phenom 9700s. And the Barcies. And most of the 9600 and 9500s produced, judging by the number of actuall owner reviews.

Thats what you meant, right?

AMD has been in this financial situation before and have come out alright. I can't see them disappearing anytime soon. I won't be too surprised if they did go bankrupt though.

What are you talking about? Your statement makes no sense. If AMD were to financially implode the justice department, FTC, and EU will not be able to do anything.

Bankruptcy does not automatically mean the company will die. It will go into receivership, and payoff their creditors. AMD will only be dissolved if it can no longer earn enough net revenue to payoff their creditors. At that point AMD will die. The creditors will sell off AMD's assets to recover as much money as possible.

The FTC may or may not allow Intel and nVidia purchase the CPU / GPU assets, but if no other company is willing to step up to the plate to buyout the assets (both intellectual & physical), then that could be a remote possibility.

One thing for sure is if AMD were to file for bankruptcy, the share price will plummet, turning AMD into essentially a penny stock company. This will be bad for the investors, but it doesn't really have any impact on AMD itself. This would be an opportunity for AMD to buy back large amounts of shares to turn itself into a private company in the extreme case. Depending on the number of outstanding shares it also allows another company to acquire a majority ownership of AMD stock and take over the company (debt and all), but this is unlikely.

Sadly, AMD/ATI is now worth around what ATI used to be before it was acquired by AMD. In my opinion, it is the GPU division (ATI) that will be carrying AMD for a while until it can get it's CPU division back on track.

The assets of the company are worth something. Physical and intellectual assets.

If things get really bad, one of our Asian friends (Sammy, Sony, Toshiba, Hitachi et al) would snap up the assets just to become a bigger player in the market and to prevent somebody else (Intel) from controlling the market segment and limiting the buying company's profit margins. These days I suspect that somebody would be Sammy, but ya never know.

Outside of the competition, there is always a good ole USA investment banker type.

AMD can declare Bankruptcy, but the assets of the company are not going to disappear.

Remember, without AMD we would be waiting for that new Pentinium 1 that will be hitting the market in 2012.

actually, i think the result will be similar to what happened between microsoft/apple. Intel is in no mood to get sued for being a monopoly, so chances are, they will throw money at amd. Enough money to keep the company limping along, but not enough to make them a threat in any way. It would be better than being broken apart. Microsoft did that with apple a while back, but apple (i think) has since bought back all the shares microsoft owned.

I think it's a more logical choice that Nvidia would buy them. It would get them into processors (which they want) and they could part out ATI eliminating their top competition.

Who knows? Maybe VIA will make a bid for AMD. After all they did buyout Cyrix and S3. They used to compete in the CPU and GPU (respectively) market before they went belly up.

AMD is big, and necessary, enough that the worst that'd happen (near term) is they'd file for Chapter 13 reorg. And fore sure they'd get that along with government subsidies.

As far as nVidia buying AMD? The resultant company would effectively have a monopoly for graphics cards. So that wouldn't be allowed unless ATI were spun off as part of the deal. Now... If you were nVidia's CEO, would you really want to take the gigantic stone from your primary competitor's neck and place it around your own???

Actually Nvidia would only have the discrete graphics card monopoly. Intel has the largest market share with there IGP's. And Intel does plan to move into the discrete market anyway.

I don't think Nvidia would have a problem argueing that they wouldn't be a monopoly.

Bankruptcy for AMD seems unlikely at the moment, but would be a sad result. I think AMD plays a vital role in keeping the competition going. Look at all the processors that came out from both Intel and AMD due to the competition in recent years. Sure they are snapping at each other's throats but their new products and slashed prices are really doing the consumer some good. I wish Microsoft had some good competition for their sorry excuse of a Windows line.

just hope someday a mac OS stops only being for mac computers

Whatever. We buy for the bang for the buck. AMD/Intel/Communism. Whatever works. Open source consumerism drives innovation, who cares who does what? We buy it. It's not like your fav sport team. I'm a SONY fanboi, right. Pana comes out with a killer TV, you think I'm a SONY boi, get real.

Ohh forget "Merry Christmas"! What about "Merry Retail" instead?

On the Apple subject, it wouldn't surprise me if a huge portion of their profits are from Ipods and the other trendy gadgets they sell?

AMD Phenom is a disappointment and the Bug has made things worse. If AMD can release the higher clocked Phenoms without the bug they might be in for a chance. I don't think it's over for AMD because they have bounced back before.

Okay, bounce to a AMD in six months, or a year from now. Or buy whats fastest and most bang for the buck.. What does it matter what the name is? We buy whats best, not what the name is. AMD/Intel. 13000 or 17000 3DMark for the same cost? Thats what matters.