Advanced Micro Devices plans to shut down its development center in Longmont, Colorado and to relocate half of its engineers to a newly formed development facility. The centre develops Geode series of microprocessors for embedded applications.

A report by Forbes claims that AMD had told its 150 employees in Longmont, Colorado design center that it would relocate 75 engineers to Fort Collins, Colorado development facility, while the remaining would leave the company by the end of the year. The Longmont facility is currently dedicated to AMD’s Geode line of low-power chips for embedded applications, such as special purpose devices.

“AMD remains committed to the embedded market as well as supporting customers designing with Geode processors,” AMD spokeswoman Jennifer Robenalt is reported to have said, adding that a couple of Geode future products have been scrapped.

Fort Collins facility is a relatively new for AMD. It was formed in April-May, 2004, when AMD hired Sam Naffziger, the ex-director of Itanium circuits and technology from HP and Intel Corp. At Intel Mr. Naffziger provided technical direction for the design of Itanium microprocessors and exploring and developing technologies for a broad range of Intel’s server processors. He was also involved into development of HP’s PA-RISC lineup of processors for high-end servers.

The Sunnyvale, California-based chipmaker company did not say, what Mr. Naffziger would do within AMD, but the fact that the company established a new development facility in Fort Collins means that the firm wants to create a separate design team in the city.

AMD acquired Geode group of developers in 2003 to enhance its Personal Connectivity Solutions group. It is uncertain, whether the Geode sales have been successful since then. The PCS group has also been developing AMD’s Personal Internet Communicator, a low-end computer design for emerging markets.