Hrm, citation? I'm just reiterating what I heard from an AMD employee that took me out for drinks. AMD needed the $200 million to survive and thought there were market segments they could not access in China, but a JV would not be encumbered in that manner.

By the time the JV's chips would be in volume production, it would be 2 generations behind, thus not eating AMD's existing Chinese customer base.

Edit: Nice un-noted edit...