A week after Dirk Meyer’s resignation as CEO
of Advanced Micro Devices, the company’s position going forward is essentially
to stay the course in the short term, while creating expansion plans farther
down the road.
Executives
at AMD, speaking during a conference call
with analysts and journalists Jan. 20 to announce fourth-quarter and full-year
financial results, said that the immediate goal is to deliver on promises
around the company’s Fusion offerings, including the upcoming launch this
summer of its "Llano" product line, which is aimed at notebooks,
ultrathin laptops and desktop PCs.
That
will follow the release earlier this month at the 2011 Consumer Electronics
Show of AMD’s
"Brazos" chips for lightweight laptops and netbooks. AMD’s Fusion
initiative brings high-end graphics capabilities and x86 CPUs onto a single
piece of silicon. AMD calls the chips APUs (accelerated processing units).
Thomas Siefert, AMD’s CFO and interim CEO, called Fusion "arguably the
most significant advancement in processor architecture in decades."
For
the quarter, AMD saw revenues come in at
$1.65 billion, flat from the same period last year. Income was $413 million, a significant
drop over the $1.29 billion of the fourth-quarter 2009, though that was
bolstered by a $1.25 billion payment from Intel to settle legal disputes
between the two companies.
For more, read the eWeek article: AMD Targets Tablet Market, Growing PC Business.