[edit] History

Spansion was founded in 1993 as a joint venture between AMD and Japan's Fujitsu Ltd. AMD took control of the company in 2003 and spun it off as an independent maker of flash memory chips in December 2005. Since the spinoff, the company has not made a profit.[1] The company has consistently lost money since it went public and lost $133 million in the third quarter of 2008, the most recent period for which it has disclosed financial data.[2] On February 23, 2009 the company laid off 3,000 employees without severance pay, while CEO John Kispert was given a bonus of $1.8 million[1][3] and managers received a 10% pay raise.[2] The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on March 1, 2009 amidst an outcry by laid-off workers.[4]