Elmer, that's some big news.
If UMC cancels their joint venture with AMD, AMD will be screwed for 65nm and 300mm wafer development. I wonder if this would also mean that UMC would cancel the custom foundry work that they were doing for AMD, too. In that case, UMC's generic process would far underperform the minimum performance that AMD would need to be competitive, and AMD would be stuck with their fab in Dresden as the only source for CPUs.
I wonder why AMD hasn't fallen on this news. Maybe the rumor is too far from being substantiated.
wbmw