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AMD slashes 500 more jobs

Troubled chipmaker announces that it has cut 500 employees, or about 3 percent of its workforce, in an effort to reduce expenses.

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Steven Musil is the night news editor at CNET News. He's been hooked on tech since learning BASIC in the late '70s. When not cleaning up after his daughter and son, Steven can be found pedaling around the San Francisco Bay Area. Before joining CNET in 2000, Steven spent 10 years at various Bay Area newspapers.
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Advanced Micro Devices announced Wednesday it had cut 500 employees, or about 3 percent of its workforce, in an effort to reduce expenses.

This is the second round of job cuts this year at the troubled chipmaker. Sunnyvale, Calif.-based AMD announced in April that it would cut 10 percent of its workforce, or about 1,650 jobs at the time.

The current round of job cuts comes on the heels of a management and structural upheaval at the company. AMD CEO Hector Ruiz announced in July that he would step down from the helm of the company, and that designated successor Dirk Meyer would take over. AMD announced in October that it would split into two companies: one for designing chips, the other for manufacturing them.

The job cuts will affect all departments in the company, except for the 3,000 employees with the new $5.7 billion manufacturing entity, which is called The Foundry Company.

In October, AMD surprised analysts by announcing a smaller-than-expected third-quarter net loss. The company reported a net loss of $67 million, or 11 cents per share. Analysts had expected a third-quarter loss of 40 cents per share on $1.48 billion in revenue. The company also reached operating profitability in the quarter.