AMD Volatile On Increased Spectre Chip Vulnerability

Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. AMD is trading down nearly 2 percent after the firm reported Thursday that its microprocessors are prone to two variants of Spectre security flaws, rather than one. 

While conceding a vulnerability to variant one that's resolvable with software updates, the chipmaker had previously claimed a “near zero” risk of susceptibility to variant two. AMD maintains that it has zero exposure to variant three.

The earlier perception of near-invincibility had inspired investor confidence in AMD’s superiority over rivals Intel Corporation INTC and ARM Holdings, whose chips suffered exposure to three Spectre variants.

Intel shares plummeted on discovery of the flaws, and AMD, with new opportunity to seize market share, initially soared. News of AMD’s unexpected vulnerabilities prompted a relatively small and brief fall, with shares seeing relief early Friday.

AMD responded to both variant discoveries by working with Microsoft Corporation MSFT and Linux vendors on operating system patches and microcode updates. Radeon GPU architectures are safe, as they do not use speculative execution, the firm said. 

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