AMD lost $854.7 million, or $2.89 a share, in Q4 on sales down 28% year-over-year to $686 million. Operating losses accounted for $217 million. The rest of the staggering total was sucked up by $620 million in one-time charges, $331 million of which went to restructuring following its Q3 debacle.

For the year, which CEO Hector Ruiz called simply "awful," sales were off 31% to $2.7 billion and net losses topped $1.3 billion, or $3.81 a share. By comparison AMD had sales of $3.9 billion in 2001 and losses of only $60.6 million, or 18 cents a share, a relative trifle.

Ruiz thinks the "worst is behind us." At the rate things are going he'd better hope so.

However, the company's savior Opteron, better known by its code name Hammer, already delayed a quarter, has slipped again from March to April. The company also said it would put Barton, its next Athlon chip, out in February, ending speculation over when exactly that was coming. However, there was no sign of Opteron's desktop companion, Athlon 64, aka ClawHammer, AMD's future mainstream product.

AMD did its best to look on the bright side. It narrowed its operating loss by $100 million and sales were up 35% from Q3. It also claimed that, unlike all the cautious chatter heard elsewhere, like over at rival Intel, and despite historical precedent, which suggests that processor sales will be down 5%-8% sequentially this quarter because of seasonality, its chip sales in Q1 will be up, and the company's aggregate sales flat to nominally up. Well, heck, one can hope.

AMD also claims that it gained market share in chips in Q4, but it's not clear exactly how that's possible since Intel claims that its market share was up. Who exactly are they taking share away from if not each other? AMD said its processor sales were $420 million in Q4, up 60% from Q3, driven by both units - units reportedly set a record - and ASPs, which is exactly what Intel said of itself. AMD claims to have channel inventory in hand, cut 50%.

Memory sales were $217 million, up 15% sequentially and Flash evidently hit another record.

As AMD previously said, it intends to fire 2,000 people. So far 1,000 have been given notice and 400 shown the door. This quarter, it expects to see the first benefits of its cost reductions and says it's on target to reduce its burn below $800 million a quarter by next quarter, which it needs to do to break even. It's got $1 billion in cash.