Amd Marketing Materials

AMD rallies, reverses course to post profit in second quarter

Advanced Micro Devices is a semiconductor manufacturer with manufacturing facilities in the United States, Europe and Asia. The company provides microprocessors, Flash memory devices and silicon-based solutions to customers worldwide. Its products include industry-standard digital integrated circuits used in personal computers, workstations, servers, communications equipment and automotive and consumer electronics. Popular products include the AMD Athlon and AMD Duron microprocessors.

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) ( NYSE:AMD ) announced Friday it pulled out of a loss in its second quarter as shipments from its new accelerated processor unit (APU) chip offering improved, prompting the company to announce a better-than-expected third quarter sales outlook.

For the three months ending June 30, the semiconductor manufacturer, whose products are used in computers and gaming consoles, posted a net income of $61 million, or $0.08 per share, compared to a net loss of $43 million, from a 6 cent loss per share, a year ago.

Adjusted for one-time items, like legal settlements and payments to the company's former manufacturing facility, earnings were $70 million, or $0.09 per share, beating analyst estimates by one cent.

However, revenues slipped 4.8% to $1.6 billion, from $1.7 billion a year ago.

Still, the company said it expects its third quarter revenues to increase between 8% and 12% from the second quarter, translating to a range of roughly $1.7 to $1.76 billion. Analysts had expected the company to report sales of $1.7 billion.

The positive outlook caused AMD's shares on the New York Stock Exchange to jump 16.62%, trading at $7.58 per share as of 1:22 pm EDT.

"In the first half of 2011, AMD brought to market the most competitive client offerings in our history, reinforcing our position as a design and innovation powerhouse," said CFO Thomas Seifert.

Revenues from AMD's computing solutions business remained relatively flat, at $1.21 billion, as higher mobile microprocessor revenues were offset by lower desktop and server revenues.

Still, the Sunnyvale, California-based company launched its A-Series APU for client personal computers (PCs), and noted over 150 notebook and desktop design wins, across manufacturers like Acer, Dell, Samsung and Toshiba.

From its graphics segment, AMD posted $367 million in revenues, down from $440 million a year ago. The unit also posted a $7 million operating loss for the quarter, driven by lower discrete mobile shipments and seasonal impacts.

AMD unleashes the Cayman-based FirePro V5900 and V7900 « Icrontic Tech

Today AMD unveils two new workstation GPUs aimed squarely at the mid- and high-end DCC and workstation market: the FirePro V5900 and V7900. The ATI moniker is fully dead, as these are branded AMD parts.

Not that it matters much—the entire ATI team responsible for previous FirePro cards is still in place, and they’ve been hard at work on these computational monsters.

solution, and each supports Eyefinity. The V5900 sips power daintily at a mere 75W and the V7900 tops out at 150W. This is possible because of some frankly incredible advancements in power technology which we’ll get to in a moment. The V5900 has two DisplayPort 1.2 ports and 1 dual-link DVI and can run three displays with Eyefinity, while the V7900 has four DisplayPort 1.2 ports and can push four displays. This generation of FirePro are the first workstation GPUs to support the new DisplayPort 1.2 spec, as well.

The list price of the V5900 is $599 and the V7900 comes in at $999.

The V5900 replaces the V5800 as their mid-range workstation GPU and the V7900 replaces the V7800. Here’s how the 2011 FirePro lineup stacks up:

New Tech

The V5900 and V7900 represent a big leap for FirePro in terms of raw performance, but more exciting is the flexibility and productivity enhancements made possible by the low-power design and Eyefinity support. Over the next few weeks we’ll be going in-depth into dissecting these exciting technologies, but for now, let’s put a name to them: First up we have PowerTune, which at first seems mundane, but once you find out exactly how they developed this power technology and what it makes possible, you’ll change your opinion just as quickly as I did. Second, we have a new anti-aliasing mode called EQAA or Enhanced Quality AntiAliasing. Third, we have a technology that basically revolutionizes the way workstation GPUs process data called GeometryBoost. On a side note, GeometryBoost was literally named by Icrontic. Bobby “UPSLynx” Miller and Eli “Pragtastic” Robbins were discussing it one night over beers and they came up with the name. Since Bobby also happens to be the Product Marketing Manager for FirePro graphics, well… boom, headshot.

Geometry Boost can be summarized thusly, in a RealTalk™ quote from FirePro Product Marketing Manager Bobby Miller. The exchange went something like this:

Brian: Bobby, give me a one-sentence summary of GeometryBoost.