A Taiwan-based web-site Monday posted more information on the matter of counterfeit processors by Advanced Micro Devices seized end last week by Taiwanese authorities.

“Based on tips provided by Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) Taiwan, the police Friday raided an electronics company located in Tainan, southern Taiwan, and seized a total of 60 000 suspect AMD CPUs. The suspect AMD CPUs, including K7 [AMD Athlon XP] and K8 [AMD Athlon 64] models, were defective CPUs that would normally have been destroyed,” claims an article posted on Taiwan-based web-site DigiTimes.

The number of chips reported to have been arrested is much less compared to the original report by another Asian web-site, who claimed that over a million of processors were seized during the raid. However, over a million re-marked AMD CPUs have allegedly been shipped to Germany and China, the Chinese-language Liberty Times reported Saturday, adding that the value of the seized CPUs would be about NT$300 million (about US$9.46 million), according to DigiTimes.

The microprocessors that were illegally sold might have been stolen from one of AMD’s three packaging and testing plants in Asia and shipped to Taiwan for re-marking. The possible source of the defective chips could be one of AMD’s packaging and testing plants in Singapore or Malaysia, or in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province (China), said the sources.

Remarked and defective CPUs may work unstably, malfunction and probably lack any overclocking potential, a capability that is valued by computer enthusiasts.

In early 2003 AMD found out there were AMD Athlon XP microprocessors relabeled into higher-speed more expensive SKUs on the market. The Sunnyvale, California-based Advanced Micro Devices quickly informed its partners in the channel about the issue and then implemented certain measures to secure its chips from counterfeiting in future.

Advanced Micro Devices representatives in the USA and Germany could not comment on the matter at press time.