Advanced Micro Devices announced yesterday that it would cut another 350 positions this week in order to fulfill the plan to bring down the company’s operating costs to $800 million per quarter. In November last year the Sunnyvale, California-based semiconductor makers unveiled its intention to lay off about 2000 of people by the end of the second quarter 2003 and up to this moment AMD reduced 1550 positions.

Although the eventual cost-cutting plan implied reduction of 2000 people, the company’s spokeswoman noted that the company decided to stop at 1550 positions including 350 announced this week at this point. Drew Prairie, an AMD representative, did not get much into details about other possible ways of reducing operating expenditures, but we know that a lot of other companies these days cut their capital expenditures in order to strengthen their financial position.

AMD also said it expects boost in sales of both microprocessors and flash memory products. The latter expectation is quite tangible, as flash memory prices are expected to rise this quarter (see this news-story); the company may also have increased their expectations towards x86-64 processors’ sales in the first half of the year based on the feedback from those, who purchased Opteron-based servers for evaluation. On the other hand, the company may have closed down several projects in order not to reduce the workforce. Let us wait for the official information before drawing any conclusion.

Note that AMD needs to pay severance to every person they lay off what decreases the company’s cash position in the short-term. The Sunnyvale-based semiconductor company spent nearly $300 million in the fourth quarter 2002 on special charges related to staff reduction by 1000 workers in the USA, Europe and Asia.