AMD's Q3 Results Beat Expectations

"We continue to progress towards consistent profitability," said AMD CFO Robert Rivet during a third-quarter earnings call with analysts Thursday. Rivet attributed the gains to increased shipments of AMD's quad-core Opteron and Phenom chips, new Turion-based notebook platform and a 55 percent sequential jump in sales of its ATI graphics products.

AMD on Thursday reported a third-quarter net loss of $67 million against a $396 million loss in the same period a year ago, while the chip maker managed to get non-GAAP net income into the black at $80 million compared to a third-quarter loss of $261 million year-on-year. Sequentially, AMD reduced second-quarter net losses of $1.19 billion by 94 percent.

The company's revenue gains were also promising -- the third quarter saw AMD pull in $1.78 billion, a 14 percent gain over 2007's third quarter revenues of $1.558 billion. Microprocessor revenues were $1.39 billion for the just-concluded quarter, up 8 percent year-on-year and up 26 percent sequentially, while graphics revenue was $385, up 40 percent over Q3 '07 and up 55 percent over Q2 '08.

Rivet said AMD expected fourth-quarter revenue to be "roughly flat" compared to the chip maker's third-quarter number. AMD CEO Dirk Meyer added that the company was "being cautious" about forward-looking guidance based on the current economic uncertainty.

Meyer also called AMD's plans to spin off its manufacturing assets as the newly formed Foundry Company "nothing short of transformational, for AMD and for the semiconductor industry." He said AMD expects the deal with the Advanced Technology Investment Company (ATIC) of Abu Dhabi to be completed by the end of the year.

Meyer also referenced the "people of upstate New York" in discussing beneficiaries of the ATIC deal, a clear sign AMD expects a new fabrication plant to be built in Saratoga County by the Foundry Co.

Meyer, who replaced Hector Ruiz as CEO in mid-July, also said AMD's 45-nanometer server processors were "shipping now and will launch in a couple weeks." Those processors, code named Shanghai, are likely to be officially launched by AMD in mid-November, according to ChannelWeb sources.

Santa Clara, Calif.-based Intel, the world's largest maker of microprocessors, debuted its first 45nm chips about a year ago.

AMD also had some sad news to deal with Thursday -- co-founder Ed Turney died Wednesday of brain cancer at the age of 79.