SAN JOSE, Calif. — A research firm has lowered its estimates on Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD) amid possible snags with its new microprocessor line.
Earlier this month, AMD released pricing for the nine models that make up its newly launched quad-core x86 microprocessor family, codenamed "Barcelona." The processor is based on 65-nm technology.
''We believe the company's late Barcelona introduction and disappointing early performance are an early indication of a bad marriage of process technology and design that will be hard to fix before a move to 45-nm is required,'' said analyst Doug Freedman of American Technology Research Inc., in a new report.
''AMD still has a lot of work to do to fix the architectural mismatch of Barcelona with the 65-nm process node and the poor performance of R600,'' he said, referring to ATI's latest graphics chip. That chip is also late to the market.
In response, AMD is expected to move the attention over to a 45-nm version of the quad-core processor. ''We expect a shift in attention to AMD's 45-nm pilot results and demonstrations as early as December at the company's analyst event, where we believe it will be more important to deliver early 45-nm samples than a 2.5GHz Barcelona processor,'' he said.
''There is no doubt that new process and product designs increase the risk of success, but in this case it appears to be the only option and best way to regain competitive products,'' he said. However, ''Intel's execution/roadmap puts even more pressure on AMD to deliver 45-nm on time in summer 2008.''
As a result of the problems, Freedman lowered his estimates on AMD. ''We are lowering our Q3 revenue and EPS estimate to $1.529 billion and a loss of $0.62 from $1.557 billion and a loss of $0.58,,'' he said. ''For 2008, we now forecast revenue of $6.855 billion verses our prior expectation of $7.237 billion, with our net loss estimate lowered to $0.97 from $0.44.''
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