Advanced Micro Devices Inc

Advanced Micro Devices Inc. is California's star member of the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index, as measured by stock price increase over the last year. Moreover, AMD's 113% stock price surge was second overall in the S&P, topped only by Dell Computer Corp. of Austin, Tex. Nipping at AMD's heels in this category is much larger Intel Corp.

European regulators demonstrated what the Obama administration's tough new antitrust stance might look like, levying a record $1.45-billion fine Wednesday against Intel Corp. for abusing its dominance in the computer chip market. The European Commission found that Intel had engaged in illegal sales tactics that frustrated competition and innovation and harmed consumers for more than five years. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission launched its own investigation of the Santa Clara, Calif.

Advanced Micro Devices Inc. said it has decided against trying to sell its networking-chip business because of increasing sales.

Qualcomm Inc., the world's largest maker of chips for mobile phones, bought graphics and multimedia technology assets from Advanced Micro Devices Inc. for $65 million. The assets formed the basis of AMD's hand-held business, the companies said.

Advanced Micro Devices Inc. said Wednesday that its top sales executive would leave the company next month. The departure of Henri Richard, AMD's chief sales and marketing officer, comes as the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based chip maker prepares to launch a highly anticipated server processor, code-named Barcelona.

Advanced Micro Devices Inc. plans to sell computer chips with six processors built into one piece of silicon in its effort to wrest sales away from Intel Corp. The six-core "Istanbul" chip will come out in the second half of next year, followed by a 12-processor product, Advanced Micro said.

Qualcomm Inc., the world's largest maker of chips for mobile phones, bought graphics and multimedia technology assets from Advanced Micro Devices Inc. for $65 million. The assets formed the basis of AMD's hand-held business, the companies said.

Advanced Micro Devices Inc., the second-largest maker of computer microprocessors, has begun selling new graphics chips and announced plans to challenge No. 1 Intel Corp. with a redesigned desktop processor. The 10 new graphics processors for personal computers update a product line that has lost market share to Nvidia Corp. The new processor for desktop computers will go on sale in the second half of the year.

Advanced Micro Devices Inc. said Monday it has contracted with Ingram Micro Inc. to distribute its AMD-K6 processor, both the Processor in a Box product and bulk tray product. Advanced Micro supplies integrated circuits for the personal and networked computer and communications markets. Ingram Micro, of Santa Ana, distributes technology products and services, and provides assembly and integration services.

Advanced Micro Devices Inc., the second-largest maker of personal-computer processors, cut its quarterly sales forecast, citing weakened demand across all its businesses. Sales will fall about 25% from $1.59 billion in the third quarter, excluding process technology license revenue, the Sunnyvale, Calif., company said. The revised forecast indicates sales of about $1.19 billion in the quarter ending Dec. 27. That misses the $1.53-billion average analyst estimate compiled by Bloomberg.

Advanced Micro Devices Inc. surprised investors with a sharply reduced loss for the third quarter, as the computer chip maker received a large lump sum for licensed technologies. Its shares soared in extended trading. Even without the licensing fees, AMD apparently outdid low expectations thanks to strong sales. The results provided a contrast to solid but unspectacular results for the quarter reported by its much larger rival, Intel Corp., and gave some reassurance to investors nervous about the prospects for the highly cyclical semiconductor industry as the economy slows down.

Advanced Micro Devices Inc. plans to sell computer chips with six processors built into one piece of silicon in its effort to wrest sales away from Intel Corp. The six-core "Istanbul" chip will come out in the second half of next year, followed by a 12-processor product, Advanced Micro said.

Shares of Advanced Micro Devices Inc., the second-largest maker of personal-computer processors, surged the most in more than three months on speculation that it was close to announcing plans to split up the company. Advanced Micro rose 59 cents, or 9%, to $7.12. For the year, the stock is down 5.1%. Investors are betting that the company will soon announce details of a plan to separate its manufacturing business from its chip design and development operations, according to CRT Capital Group analyst Ashok Kumar.

Dell Inc. has stopped selling many computers with processors from Advanced Micro Devices Inc. on its website, although it will continue selling some through retailers. The news was a setback for AMD, which wooed Dell for years before breaking the computer maker's exclusive supplier relationship with Intel Corp. in 2006. Intel still made the processors used in most computers sold by Dell online. But AMD raised its profile in the chip field by being inside some Dell machines.

Still bleeding from a costly acquisition of a graphics chip company, Advanced Micro Devices Inc. slashed the value of that company by $1.6 billion in the fourth quarter, but with sales of microprocessors surging it managed to post a narrower loss than analysts had feared it would. Still, Sunnyvale, Calif.-based AMD's losses in 2007 were staggering, capping a brutal two-year stretch in which its market value has plunged from more than $20 billion to $3.5 billion. The stock has fallen from above $40 a share in early 2006 to nearly $5 in recent weeks.

Jerry Sanders will step down in April as chairman of computer chip maker Advanced Micro Devices Inc., the company said. Hector Ruiz, a former Motorola Inc. executive who became AMD's chief executive in April 2002, will take on the additional title of chairman, the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company said. Sanders, who co-founded AMD in 1969, intends to remain on the board of directors, the company said. From Reuters

Computer processor maker Advanced Micro Devices Inc. said Thursday that it wouldn't return to profitability until the second half of next year and delayed the full release of the product it said would enable the company to recover. "We have gone through a very difficult time, reacted quickly and decisively, and we are on our way to really have, I believe, a phenomenal transition year in 2008," Chief Executive Hector Ruiz said at an analyst conference in New York.

Computer processor manufacturer Advanced Micro Devices Inc. on Thursday said it had delayed the widespread release of its newest server chip because it was running too slowly. Some Barcelona chips had a glitch that led them to stop working, and the technology that fixes it makes them run more slowly, spokesman John Taylor said. The chips will be widely available in the first quarter, he said. Clients such as Taiwan-based Acer Inc.