AMD is readying itself for a division into two companies in a matter of weeks, according to a new claim by alleged industry insiders. While the company has already talked about separate initiatives to focus the company, termed Asset Light and Asset Smart, this is now expected to include an upcoming announcement that the company will split into two distinct entities. A core company will continue developing AMD's processors and chipsets; a second will be dedicated solely to manufacturing at the chip maker's existing factories.

The deal has reportedly been crafted to minimize the cost of the separation for AMD; the firm will avoid having to raise money for either of the resulting groups.

Although the two companies are likely to be tightly connected and will see the manufacturing group produce the design group's hardware, it's not known whether the plan will allow the manufacturing group to accept work from outside parties. Such a move would potentially introduce competition to AMD, though the company expects the Asset Light/Smart move to turn the company from loss to profit before the end of the year.

The claimed imminent change will contrast AMD sharply with Intel, which will continue to both design and manufacture its own components. The process has been considered important to Intel's recent success as it lets the company not only improve the logical design of its processors but make assumptions about manufacturing capabilities.