Since AMD spun off its fabrication facilities as The Foundry Company, later GlobalFoundries, it has made a number of major payments to its once and former subsidiary. For example In 2012 AMD sold its final stake in GlobalFoundries and amended its wafer supply agreement in order to allow APU products to be built at rival fabs. They are a bit like having to pay maintence after a messy divorce.

Now, the company is once again amending its deal with GlobalFoundries in an agreement which covers the next five years.

Lisa Su, AMD president and chief executive said that the five-year amendment further strengthens AMD's strategic manufacturing relationship with GlobalFoundies while providing AMD with increased flexibility to build its high-performance product roadmap with additional foundries in the 14nm and 7nm technology nodes.

"Our goal is for AMD to have continued access to leading-edge foundry process technologies enabling us to build multiple generations of great products for years to come," she said.

Under the new terms, AMD agrees to a technology collaboration as a means to reach a 7nm process node> it also  sets minimum wafer purchase targets and has agreed terms that will allow it to spread manufacturing across additional fabrication companies. For all this AMD has greed to write a cheque for $100 million to GlobalFoundries, spread across 2016 and 2017. It will also make unspecified quarterly payments to GlobalFoundries for every wafer it buys from the company's rivals.

In total, the new deal will see AMD hit with a $335 million one-off charge in the third quarter of this year.