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AMD sales top $1b. in first quarter

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CIOL Bureau
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It appears that the good times have finally arrived at Advanced Micro Devices

as demand for its high-end Athlon microprocessors and flash memory chips has

pushed quarterly sales over the $1 billion barrier for the first time. AMD’s

shareholders are now enjoying the company’s recovery as well, as AMD shares

topped $67 a share this week.

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Sales in AMD’s first quarter rose to just over $1.06 billion, 10 percent

above sales recorded in the fourth quarter of 1999. Earnings results will be

announced in the next several weeks. AMD’s success is partially due to

Intel’s inability to keep up with demand for its high-end chips. AMD has

clearly out-maneuvered Intel by stepping up the pace of launching new, more

powerful processors.

AMD has been leveraging the advantages of its copper-based process

technology, which allows its engineers to more quickly shrink die sizes than

Intel. The latter firm continues to rely on aluminum interconnects. By the time

Intel has figured out how to produce chips matching AMD’s top performance, AMD

appears ready with another more powerful chip. In March AMD beat Intel to the

market with the first milestone 1GHz processor. The company’s top 4 processors

outperform Intel’s high-end Pentium III chips in terms of clock speed,

although Intel’s design provides a slightly higher overall performance

advantage.

The race is stretching Intel’s capabilities, both technologically and

logistically as the company has to produce far more chips than AMD. The speed

with which new top-of-the-line chips are introduced into the fabs has been tough

even for Intel. Times have not always been so kind to AMD which has spent the

last 14 years playing catch-up to Intel’s top processors. AMD lost money in

the first three quarters of 1999 and reported losses in 10 of the past 15

quarters.

"We continued to gain unit share worldwide last quarter in the PC

processor segment," said AMD chairman Jerry Sanders. Industry analysts believe

Intel is preparing to once again take a commanding performance lead later this

year with the launch of the "Willamette" processor that may operate in

the 1.5 GHz range.

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