Sun reported flat revenues at $3.1 billion in the most recent quarter yesterday, and scraped a narrow loss of $26.1m. But margins were a whopping 42 per cent, which Sun attributed to inventory improvements, and the company sits on a cash pile of $6 billion.

While Sun continues to beef up its chip team in Austin and elsewhere, it said it will lose 1,000 posts overall by the end of the calendar year.

Sun was netting $4 billion a quarter even after the dot com bubble burst, but took the bitter pill last year, cutting jobs and writing off investments as it faced its first loss in fourteen years - and only the second in its history, So there were few shocks or surprises again this time. The only surprise being that it hasn't spent any of its near-$6 billion cash pile on acquisitions, something it's been hinting at for a few months now. ®