Ever since AMD's acquisition of ATI, their financial outlook has not been good. Partially due to Intel putting increased competition on them and partially due to other strategies gone awry, they have been looking for ways to recover. While they do have a lot of prospects on the horizon, such as Phenom, they still need cold hard cash to make things happen.
As as a result, AMD has sought cash from third parties, and now has received $622 million from an investment company known as Mubadala, based in the United Arab Emirates. In return for their investment, the company will be receiving an 8.1% share of AMD, which could give them considerable sway as to AMD's future endeavors.
While this is certainly not bad news for AMD, it's also not good either. Hopefully, with the newer Radeons and the next line of processors they will begin to turn things around. For many years we saw Intel and AMD go neck-and-neck in a lot of things, and it would be a shame to see that slip away now