Previously, AMD had expected a strong Q3 2011, driven by strong demand for Llano, with revenue growth of 10% over Q2. However, AMD has now revised Q3 revenue growth to only 4%-6%. The main reason cited was manufacturing issues at GlobalFoundries.
The previous forecast suggested revenues of approximately $1.725 billion, while the revision pulls down the revenue guidance to the $1.65 billion range. It is no surprise that the GlobalFoundries 32nm process is suffering from yield issues, with supply shortages for Llano APUs. The top Llano SKU for desktops, A8-3850 is out of stock at many retailers around the world, and notebooks based on Llano are still hard to come by, if not completely non-existant in several popular markets, such as South Asia. It is clear that AMD is unable to satisfy the strong demand for Llano, leading to reduced shipments.
In additions to problems with the 32nm process, 45nm supply has been hit as well, "due to complexities related to the use of common tools across both technology nodes". Due to the top bin A8 APUs being worst affected - another sign of poor yields - the average selling price is also down, resulting in a reduced gross margin of 44%-45%, from previous guidance of 47%.
With Bulldozer finally shipping, and FX Series finally releasing next month, things are going to get even more challenging for the problematic GloFo 32nm process. The Bulldozer die is 40% larger than Llano. On the other hand, Bulldozer is a traditional CPU with no extensive GPU part.
Source: Forbes
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