AMD vs Amphenol: Founders, CEOs and History

Company facts

Founders

CEOs and their tenures

Timeline: AMD and Amphenol side by side

1. 1932Amphenol

   Arthur J. Schmitt founds American Phenolic Corporation

   Arthur J. Schmitt incorporates American Phenolic Corporation in Chicago with a patented molded phenolic radio tube socket, establishing the company's foundation in electronic component manufacturing.

2. 1936Amphenol

   Introduction of industry-standard 75 series microphone connector and lock-in socket

   Amphenol introduces the 75 series uniform microphone connector and a lock-in socket for radio tubes, both becoming industry standards and attracting RCA as a major customer ordering 10,000 sockets daily.

3. 1942Amphenol

   Primary supplier of AN connectors for WWII Allied forces

   Amphenol becomes a critical defense supplier, with its 5015 AN circular connectors becoming standard equipment on military aircraft and communications gear; A-N connector shipments increase 13,572% from January 1941 to March 1943.

4. 1942Amphenol

   Official name change to Amphenol Electronics Corporation

   The company officially changes its name from American Phenolic Corporation to Amphenol Electronics Corporation, formalizing the shorthand name customers had used for years.

5. 1945Amphenol

   Initial public offering

   Amphenol raises $1.5 million from convertible debentures and sells 345,000 shares at $10 per share, giving the company a $4 million market capitalization and providing capital for post-war diversification.

6. 1951Amphenol

   Amphenol engineers develop the BNC connector

   Amphenol engineers Paul Neill and Carl Concelman develop the bayonet coupled BNC coaxial connector, which becomes a standard interface in radio frequency and test equipment applications.

7. 1957Amphenol

   NYSE listing

   Amphenol Electronics Corporation lists on the New York Stock Exchange, marking its transition to a major public industrial company.

8. 1958Amphenol

   Merger with George W. Borg Corporation

   Amphenol completes its largest transaction to date, merging with the George W. Borg Corporation, a maker of automobile clocks, electronic instruments and deep pile fabrics, and is renamed Amphenol-Borg Electronics Corporation.

9. 1967Amphenol

   Acquisition by Bunker-Ramo Corporation

   Bunker-Ramo Corporation acquires Amphenol, which begins operating as a subsidiary and passes through successive corporate owners for the next 24 years.

10. 1969AMD

    Advanced Micro Devices Founded

    Jerry Sanders and seven colleagues from Fairchild Semiconductor founded AMD on May 1, 1969, and broke ground that year on the 915 DeGuigne building in Sunnyvale, California, which remained the headquarters for more than 47 years.

11. 1975AMD

    Entry Into Microprocessors

    AMD entered the microprocessor market in 1975, moving beyond the logic devices it started with. The decision put it into direct competition with Intel and made x86 compatibility the center of its business for the next four decades.

12. 1981Amphenol

    Allied Corporation buys Bunker-Ramo for $358 million

    Allied Corporation acquires Bunker-Ramo for $358 million, including the Amphenol division, making Amphenol part of a larger industrial conglomerate.

13. 1987Amphenol

    LPL Investment leveraged buyout for $430 million

    LPL Investment buys Amphenol from Allied in a leveraged buyout valued at $430 million in cash, and the decentralized management style that defines the modern company takes hold. Martin H. Loeffler becomes president in the same year.

14. 1991Amphenol

    Second IPO on NYSE under ticker APH

    Amphenol returns to public markets with a second initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange under ticker APH, beginning the modern era of sustained growth and shareholder returns.

15. 1999AMD

    Athlon Breakthrough

    Athlon launched in 1999 and matched or beat Intel on desktop performance. In March 2000 AMD announced the first 1 GHz x86 processor, days ahead of Intel, which changed how enthusiasts and PC makers judged the company.

16. 2005AMD

    Antitrust Lawsuit Against Intel

    AMD sued Intel in 2005, alleging rebates and exclusionary practices that limited its access to PC makers.

17. 2005Amphenol

    Acquisition of Teradyne connector business for $390 million

    Amphenol acquires Teradyne's connection systems business for $390 million in October 2005, expanding its presence in high speed data and backplane connectors for the growing IT datacom market.

18. 2006AMD

    ATI Technologies Acquired

    AMD acquired ATI Technologies in 2006 for about $5.4B to add graphics and chipsets. The debt-funded deal strained the balance sheet just as Intel shipped Core 2, but ATI became the basis for Radeon graphics, console APUs, and later Instinct accelerators.

19. 2009AMD

    Fabless Pivot Through GlobalFoundries

    AMD moved its manufacturing operations into GlobalFoundries in 2009 and stopped owning fabs. The change removed billions of annual capital spending and let AMD buy leading-edge capacity, but it also tied the product roadmap to outside foundries.

20. 2011AMD

    Bulldozer Architecture Failure

    Bulldozer traded single-thread performance for core count at a time when most software depended on per-core speed. Reviews were poor, PC maker confidence fell, and server share collapsed, which is what forced the clean-sheet Zen project.

21. 2014AMD

    Lisa Su Becomes CEO

    AMD's board appointed Lisa Su president and CEO on October 8, 2014, succeeding Rory Read. She narrowed the company around high-performance computing and put the engineering budget behind the Zen CPU core rather than spreading it across incremental projects.

22. 2016Amphenol

    Acquisition of FCI Asia for $1.275 billion

    Amphenol acquires FCI Asia from affiliates of Bain Capital for $1.275 billion in January 2016, strengthening its global connector footprint and adding high speed backplane and board-to-board capability.

23. 2017AMD

    Ryzen, EPYC, and Chiplets Rebuild AMD

    Zen reached the market in 2017 as Ryzen for desktops and EPYC for servers. Chiplet packaging over Infinity Fabric let AMD build high core-count parts from smaller dies, improving usable yield and giving it a cost structure Intel's monolithic designs could not…

24. 2021Amphenol

    Acquisition of MTS Systems Corporation for $1.7 billion

    Amphenol acquires MTS Systems for $1.7 billion in April 2021, adding advanced sensor capability that deepens its position in industrial and automotive sensing.

25. 2022AMD

    Xilinx Acquisition

    AMD completed the Xilinx acquisition in February 2022. The all-stock deal was announced in October 2020 at about $35B and was worth roughly $49B at close.

26. 2024Amphenol

    Acquisition of Carlisle Interconnect Technologies for about $2.0 billion

    Amphenol completes the purchase of Carlisle Interconnect Technologies from Carlisle Companies in May 2024 for about $2.0 billion, expanding aerospace, defense and medical harsh environment interconnect capability.

27. 2025AMD

    ZT Systems Acquired and Its Factories Sold

    AMD closed the ZT Systems purchase on March 31, 2025, paying $3.2B in cash plus 8.3 million shares for rack-scale AI systems design.

28. 2025AMD

    OpenAI Agrees to Deploy 6 Gigawatts of AMD GPUs

    On October 6, 2025 AMD and OpenAI announced a multi-year agreement covering 6 gigawatts of AMD GPUs, starting with a 1 gigawatt Instinct MI450 deployment in the second half of 2026.

29. 2025AMD

    Record $34.6B Revenue

    AMD reported FY2025 revenue of $34.6B, up 34%, with net income of $4.3B and a 50% gross margin.

30. 2025Amphenol

    Completion of the $2.1 billion CommScope outdoor wireless and DAS purchase

    Amphenol completes the acquisition of CommScope's Outdoor Wireless Networks and Distributed Antenna Systems businesses, including Andrew, for $2.1 billion in cash. The businesses had about $1.2 billion of 2024 sales.

31. 2025Amphenol

    Record fiscal 2025 revenue of $23.09 billion, up 52%

    Amphenol reports record full year 2025 net sales of $23.09 billion, up 52% year over year and 38% organically, with a 25.4% GAAP operating margin, $4.4 billion of free cash flow and Communications Solutions sales up 91% to about $12.1 billion.

32. 2026AMD

    Meta Agrees to Deploy Up to 6 Gigawatts of AMD GPUs

    On February 24, 2026 AMD and Meta announced a multi-year agreement for up to 6 gigawatts of Instinct GPUs.

33. 2026Amphenol

    Completion of the $10.5 billion CommScope CCS acquisition

    Amphenol closes its largest acquisition, buying CommScope's Connectivity and Cable Solutions business for $10.5 billion on January 12, 2026. Amphenol also acquired the CommScope name and expects the business to generate about $4.1 billion of sales in 2026.

34. 2026Amphenol

    Norwitt named chairman as Loeffler retires from the board

    Amphenol announces on February 4, 2026 that chief executive R. Adam Norwitt will also become chairman of the board at the May 2026 annual meeting, as Martin H. Loeffler retires from the board after more than five decades with the company.

Acquisitions

Questions about AMD vs Amphenol