AMD Records $396 Million USD Net Loss For Q3

Earlier this week, DailyTech reported that were things were looking rosy for the Intel folks in Santa Clara, California. The company reported that its profits were up 43 percent on revenues of $10.1 billion USD.

Today, it was AMD's turn to report its Q3 earnings results. AMD recorded revenue of $1.632 billion USD -- this represented an 18 percent increase from Q2 2007. However, AMD reported an operating loss of $226 million USD and a net loss of $396 million USD -- this compares to a $611 million USD net loss for Q1 and a $600 million USD net loss for Q2.

Part of AMD's losses during Q3 can be attributed to its acquisition of ATI Technologies in 2006. The company is still reeling from the purchase and recorded a $78 million USD charge as a result. The ATI-related charge involved costs related to integration and severance packages. Another $42 million USD charge was recorded in relation to Spansion.

On a more positive note, the introduction of ATI's Radeon HD 2000 series GPUs resulted in a 29 percent increase in graphics revenue to $252 million USD. AMD also noted that its Radeon HD 2000 series GPUs are now featured in desktop and notebook systems from Dell, HP, Lenovo and Toshiba.

During 2007, AMD has racked up enormous debt and experienced losses in every quarter. Former ATI president CEO Dave Orton left in July after successfully leading the charge to integrate the two tech companies. AMD also lost executive vice president and chief sales and marketing officer Henri Richard in late November. The following month, AMD vice president of worldwide sales Rick Hegberg packed his bags and headed for the door.

AMD still has room for improvement in the form of its new quad-core 65nm Barcelona architecture. The company launched its Barcelona-based Opteron server processors in early September with speeds up to 2.0GHz. 2.3GHz models are in the pipeline for Q4 2007.

Quad-core desktop Phenom 2.2GHz (Phenom 9500) and 2.4GHz (Phenom 9600) processors will launch late next month, while a 2.6GHz (Phenom 9700) processor will be ready for December. AMD will later tackle the high-end desktop market with the Phenom FX-82 during the first half of 2008.

AMD also threw a bit of a curve ball with the announcement of a triple-core Phenom processor family. The triple-core processors logically fit between AMD's dual-core and quad-core offerings and will bring "true multi-core technology to a broader audience," according to the company.

The next few months won't be easy for AMD, however. Although it has a new CPU architecture on tap, Intel is not standing still. Intel is always one step ahead of AMD when it comes to process technology and its 45nm Penryn-based Xeon processors will launch November 12, while its Penryn-based desktop processors should be available before the end of the year.

In addition, Intel will refresh its 45nm architecture in the summer of 2008 with Nehalem, while a 32nm refresh called Westmere will be in place for 2009.

info: www.dailytech.com