Technology giant silent on plans

Grappling with major layoffs and a stock price that has nearly halved since last year, Advanced Micro Devices is keeping new details about its turnaround plans close to its chest.

AMD is the world's second largest producer of microprocessors, the brains of personal computers, and it spends billions of dollars each year refining their manufacturing processes.

At a short annual meeting with shareholders, the company's chief executive, Hector Ruiz, did not discuss AMD's long-awaited plans to cut its heavy manufacturing costs.

His 20-minute speech was punctuated with just one question from a shareholder - about why AMD doesn't sponsor professional golf tournaments to increase its visibility.

A spokesman said the company typically has short annual meetings.

A year ago Ruiz began hinting that AMD is thinking about offloading some of its manufacturing duties to third parties to save money, but he has been silent about details since then.

AMD has accumulated more than $4 billion (£2 billion) in losses over the last year and a half as intensifying competition from Intel and expenses from its acquisition of graphics chip maker ATI Technologies have taken their toll.

The company said last month it plans to cut 10% of its global work force, or about 1,600 workers, by September in an aggressive cost-cutting move. Mr Ruiz reiterated that the company expects to reach operational profitability in the second half of this year.

His comments come after the company outlined its server strategy for the next several years, which includes plans for chips with 6 and 12 cores or calculating engines.

Most chips now have two or four cores. Adding more cores increases the chips' ability to handle many tasks at once, and is something chip makers have to do to continue boosting performance while keeping a lid on power consumption.

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