AMD comes a cropper on chip yields

An unspecified problem in manufacturing microprocessors led AMD to warn it will make a loss yesterday, as it announced 300 jobs will go. Rumours had circulated ever since the beginning of this year that a yield problem was affecting AMD K6 production. Last week, we reported that there was already a dearth of its newest K6-III processors in the marketplace. AMD would not say where the axe would fall on the jobs, but this is the second time in the last four weeks that it has warned there would be a loss in its financial Q1. The company claims the yield problem is now solved but said that it would fall short of its K6 target this year and post a "significant" loss. One of our readers took the time to speak to AMD in more detail about the problem. He talked to executive Toni Beckman, who said that AMD sees improvements of yield on higher clocking chips. She also told him there would me more improvements in Q2. He took the opportunity to question AMD about chipsets for the K7, and she said that ALI and VIA were on target for a June release. She scuttled the story, reported here earlier, that chipsets were delayed. Motherboard manufacturer Shuttle claimed that last month. ® See also K6-IIIs as rare as hen's teeth K7 chipset reported delayed AMD claims 30 million 3DNow! chips to ship by year end AMD hurts as Intel fights harder