AMD: Bad News

[d3an_v3r]

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AMD Sinking Under Hurricane of Bad News





Grim tidings abound at AMD this quarter, confirming some of our worst fears and raising serious questions about the company's ability to continue as a going concern. Revenue for the quarter was $1.27 billion, a decrease of 10% sequentially and 25% year-on-year. The company reported a net loss of $157M and has announced a new restructuring (read: massive layoffs) plan. The company's gross margin plummeted to 31%, down from 45% last quarter.

The decline in gross margin was driven by an inventory write-down on the value of the unsold hardware AMD was carrying at the end of Q2. Despite this, AMD's inventory levels remain worryingly high. The company is currently sitting on $744M of unsold hardware, down $89M from Q2, but up 56% from inventory levels at the end of 2011. Graphics sales were down somewhat in Q3, falling to $342M with an operating income of $18M. GPU revenue fell 15% year-on-year.

Finally, and worst of all, AMD has announced another round of layoffs. The company plans to fire about 15% of its workforce. Based on what we've heard from sources, those cuts are going to hit Canada hard -- Markham, where the old ATI division and Radeon engineers are located, is rumored to be in the crosshairs. It's not clear, yet, whether AMD plans to take the axe to chipset development or Radeon engineering, but those are the two divisions that primarily work out of the Great White North.

We've updated this story with results from the conference call. The PR released thus far is notable for what it doesn't mention. No word on Kaveri's tape-out, Kabini's launch, the HD 8000 series, or any other product launches farther than a few weeks out. Rory Read claims he has a plan in place to bring the company profitable with a $1.3B sales target -- but claims he won't reach this goal until Q3 2013. With AMD's stock trading at half the value it held a year ago, and down nearly 75% from the Bobcat launch period in January, 2011, it's not clear how long it will take the company to put things in order.

Post Conference Call:

AMD's conference call ran nearly 90 minutes and offered precious little optimism. Revenue for Q4 is expected to be down a further 10%. Read point-blank admitted that AMD has no chance of competing with Intel and stated that he'll be accelerating AMD's transition to other product categories.

The Good:

• Kabini (Brazos' follow-up) is expected to launch in the first half of the year.
• Embedded APUs (consoles) are expected to be a much higher percentage of AMD's revenue by this time next year; up to 20% from 5% currently.
• AMD is building "Third party cores" (read: ARM chips) into Seamicro boxes to target the dense server space. These efforts won't hit market until 2014.

The Bad:

• No mention of Kaveri, Steamroller, or any future Opteron parts.
• Graphics is performing "at expectations," but Read offered no information on how GPU development will be impacted by these layoffs or when we'll see the HD 8000 family launch.
• Much talk of "re-using IP blocks." The problem with this argument is that while it makes sense from a cost perspective, every other company is falling all over itself to design custom IP blocks to differentiate products and achieve minimal power consumption.
• Read predicted no relief from the beating AMD is taking from Intel.

I've got some more thoughts to share on this topic, but I'm waiting to see exactly how the axe swings before I say more. This is an exceptionally bad situation for the company.


source: AMD Sinking Under Hurricane of Bad News - HotHardware


Semi-good News: AMD “Tahiti LE” Brand Named Radeon HD 7890

A little earlier this week, it was reported that AMD is working on a new Radeon HD 7800 series graphics card based on the company’s 28 nm “Tahiti” silicon. According to a new report, the so-called “Tahiti LE” SKU has been brand named Radeon HD 7890. Although clock speeds, core and memory configurations are still under the wraps, the new SKU, according to the report, is being designed to be 15% faster than GeForce GTX 660 on average, while being similarly priced. AMD is gunning for the crucial X’mas shopping season, when apparently, a few cool people gift high-performance graphics cards.

source: itLounge

[lloyd_joy]

if Intel will buy AMD... patay ang competition... kaubo tang mga end user... paeta... tsk tsk tsk... kun madayon ni akoang gi ingon, paksit napud ning Nvidia sa sunod... "history would repeat itself"... mao ni ang nahitabo sa uban mga chipset manufacturers... pag gawas sa mga intel owned chip set (north and south bridge ICs)... patay ang competition... papas... mura'g VIA na lang ang nag lihok ron pero, tua sa lain market segment... naa pa man siguro pud pero, lain pud ang focus market segment sa semicon products nila. once daginoton to's Intel, wla na gyud... tsk tsk tsk...

[bim27142]

this is really bad... AMD should not be another Cyrix... and ATI should not die along with it...

[lloyd_joy]

Cyrix is still operating under VIA's name after gi palit sila sa VIA... ug tua sila active sa mga embedded systems... nag hinay2x na baya sulod did2 ang Atom sa Intel pud. when kaha maka hold on ang VIA sa attack of the Semiconductor Giant?

[lloyd_joy]

oi, nindot nang HD 7890... affordable ra ang price nya granting, sa GTX 660 ang target market segment nya... mga 9 to 11k php siguro ni sya ug price...

[keropi]

Im pretty confident ATI wont be dragged into this AMD plunge. Personally, im counting on NVidia to steal the gaming cpu spotlight from Intel and i think it wont take long. By then budget gamers would have an alternative.. If they could come up with a peripheral interface that would trounce Intel's QPI with more lanes and more efficiency, we would have a winner. I hope didto na padung ang Tegra..

[lloyd_joy]

loosing pud ra ba ang Nvidia... mas maayo daghan players para daghan ma generate na IP then daghan products magawas sa market ug mapalit nato na mga consumers... then price war sila pra kita ang mabulahan... paet kaayo if isa lang ang major players. no choice ta. kun usa ang ipa uso nila, sunod lang ta... then sa price pud, no contest, pilde ta'ng mga consumers daan... hhhaaayyyy...

hope AMD can go through this gigantic storm that they are facing right now... i really hope and wish ani...

nindot kaayo ang feeling sa semiconductor industry kun ang Company where naa ta nag work, maka release ug invention or innovation... pero grabe ang pressure from both Customers ug Competitors... as well sa in-house... 1st hand experience ni nako... karon na time... hehehe...

[keropi]

Sometimes it goes through my mind that there's a good side to these things. At least not everybody up til the tricycle drivers will be sporting a tablet in the near future. Gadgets only for those who can.. Power computing only for those who can.. If i cant, then i wont have a hard feeling ..

[lloyd_joy]

hehehe... too much gadget can degrade family ties... dili naman mag istorya ang pamilya... sige na lang slide2x sa screen or tuslok sa keypads/ keyboards... hhhaaayyyy... this is reality though...

mas better pa ang wla ni sila... for sure, mas stronger or solid ang ties sa family... pero, naa man pud ni positive na gihatag sila... it opened our eyes and minds to a wide possibility... sa kanta pa... "A whole new world"... nag ka gamay pa gyud ang kalibutan... kuyaw ma himo'g looper... hehehe

[rapsalamotak]

mayta dili mawala ang AMD T_T