Earnings Call: Q4 2014

Jan 20, 2015

Good day, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by, and welcome AMD's 4th Quarter and Annual Results Conference Call. The conference. Later, we will conduct a question and answer session and instructions will follow at that time. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. The conference to our host, Ruth Cotter, Vice President of Corporate Communications and Investor Relations. Thank you, and welcome to AMD's 4th quarter year end earnings conference call. By now, you should have had the opportunity to review a copy of our earnings release and the CFO commentary and slides. If you've not reviewed these documents, they can be found on AMD's website at ir.amd.com. The call today are Lisa Su, our President and Chief Executive Officer and Devinder Kumar, our Senior Vice President and Chief Financial the conference call. This is a live call and will be replayed via webcast on amd.com. I'd like to take a moment and highlight a few dates for you. Divinder Kumar will present at the Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference on February 10 and at the Morgan Stanley Media and Telecom Conference on March 3. Our Q1 quiet time will begin at the close of business on Friday, March 13, and AMD will host its Financial Analyst Day on May 6 in New York. Before we begin, let me remind everyone that today's discussion contains forward looking statements the SEC and SEC filings based on the environment as we currently see it. Those statements are based on current beliefs, assumptions and expectations, speak only as of the current date and as such involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from our current expectations. The call. Additionally, note that non GAAP financial measures referenced during this call are reconciled to their most directly comparable GAAP Financial Measure in the press release and CFO Commentary posted on our website at quarterlyearnings.amddot the call. Please refer to the cautionary statements in today's earnings press release and CFO commentary for more information. You'll also find detailed discussions about our risk factors in our filings with the SEC and in particular AMD's quarterly report on Form 10Q Q for the quarter ended September 27, 2014. Now with that, I'd like to hand the call over to Lisa. Lisa? Thank you, Ruth, and good afternoon to all those listening in today. In the Q4, we made good progress diversifying our business into new markets, ramping PC and embedded design wins with key customers and improving our overall balance sheet. This progress was offset by ongoing weakness in our PC the Q2 of 2019. Thank you, Steve. Thank you, Steve. Thank you, Steve. Thank you, Steve. Good morning, everyone. Thank you, Steve. Good morning, everyone. Good morning, everyone. Good morning, everyone. Good morning, everyone. Good morning, everyone. Good morning, everyone. Good morning, everyone. Good morning, everyone. Good morning, everyone. The Computing and Graphics segment revenue decreased 15% sequentially, largely driven by weak channel We took some key actions in the Q4 to reposition our product stack and reduce downstream desktop and AIB channel Laurie. While these corrective actions are resulting in short term pressure in the business, they are integral to building a stronger and more profitable business going forward. We did have some success in the quarter continuing to reshape our OEM business. We drove a richer mix of higher end products, expanded our presence in the commercial market and increased adoption of our discrete graphics solutions. Mobile APU unit shipments, ASPs and revenue all increased sequentially as our higher end A8 and A10 APU shipments increased. We also achieved strong double digit percentage revenue growth for notebook GPUs in the quarter our strategic wins like Apple's Imac with Retina 5 ks display began to ramp. We Clearly, we have more work to do to improve the overall revenue and financial performance of this segment. We must apply the same rigor the investment that led to the improvement in our OEM business to stabilize and then grow our channel. I am confident we are taking the right actions to return this segment to a healthy trajectory starting in the second quarter. Turning to our Enterprise Embedded and Semi Custom segment. As expected, Semi Custom unit shipments decreased sequentially the Q3 as we supplied a significant amount of product to Microsoft and Sony in the Q3 as they ramp to support the holiday demand spike. We are pleased with the full year performance of the semi custom business and the strong sell through reported by our customers. Nearly 30,000,000 Sony and Microsoft consoles have now shipped. Our semi custom unit shipments more than doubled in 2014, our Q3 earnings call. Which fueled excellent full year performance for this part of our business. Embedded Processor revenues also increased Q3, as we continue to successfully execute our strategy to gain share in targeted vertical markets where our high performance CPU and GPU UIP are differentiated. In target markets such as network storage, avionics and medical devices, We had several customers launch new AMD embedded powered solutions that take advantage of our high performance CPU and GPU IP, the Q1. We have secured multiple design wins for our upcoming Opteon A Series and the first systems are expected to launch later this Chickfronze. Annual revenue grew for the first time since 2011. Annual EESC segment revenue increased by 50% growing to a $2,400,000,000 business with strong momentum and pipeline. We ended the year with more than $1,000,000,000 in cash our Investor Relations and Company. And most importantly, we delivered full year non GAAP profitability and to We continue to build a good foundation for future long term profitable growth as we invest in the innovations to drive future success. In my 100 days as AMD's CEO, I've had the opportunity to spend significant time with our customers, partners employees. The consistent theme is that AMD is at our best when we are delivering differentiated technology and innovation to our customers. There are clearly significant opportunities for us to accomplish this both in our traditional PC business as well as in new growth markets. But we must think differently in 2015 about our market approach and investment priorities. The Q4 of 2019. We have rightsized our investments in this business and taken actions to reduce our downstream channel inventory in the Q4. We will continue these corrective actions into the Q1 to aim for a return to growth starting in the second We are correcting the inventory position quickly, which is contributing to our revenue guidance in the Q1. We believe this will position us well when we begin to ramp new products later this year. We plan to introduce a strong 20 our 2018 product portfolio punctuated by the launch of Carrizo in the Q2. Consumer and commercial design win momentum for Carrizo continue to gain momentum because it will deliver the largest ever generational leap in performance per watt for our mainstream APUs. Carrizo is a good example of how the innovations we are making at the chip and system level through differentiated design capabilities translate into meaningful improvements to the user experience and battery life. 2nd, we will increase our R and D investments the company's Q1 and full year 2019 results. AMD is the only company in the industry that can offer a full continuum of high performance standard and custom solutions spanning both the ARM and x86 ecosystems, and we must leverage this position to drive differentiated and innovative solutions for our customers. Our server partners have increasingly told us they want to see AMD playing a much larger part in this Although the server design cycle is longer, this is an important vector for long term revenue and margin expansion And we are designing new X86 and ARM based leadership products for this space powered by our next generation ARM and X86 cores. Our 3rd priority will be to continue diversifying our revenue base and growing in new markets. We saw good momentum with significant revenue and design win growth in 2014 across all of our new businesses. For instance, Embedded and Professional Graphics revenue both increased by more than 20% in 2014. We have a robust pipeline in these businesses as well as with our semi custom engagements and we will continue that focus through 2015. In summary, I am optimistic about our long term opportunities, but realistic about our short term challenges. Our Investor Relations team. In the near term, we will take significant steps to normalize our business as we sharpen our focus on our key priorities of building great products, deepening our customer relationships and simplifying our business. Longer term, we have a tremendous opportunity to apply our technology and IP to differentiate and innovate with our customers and further strengthen our financial foundation and performance. The call. Now I'd like to turn the call over to Devinder to provide some additional color on our Q4 financial performance and Q1 guidance. Devinder? Thank you, Lisa, and good afternoon, everyone. In 2014, We improved our non GAAP financial performance and met the financial goals we laid out at the beginning of the year despite continued weakness in our Computing and Graphics business. Specifically, we continue to transform and position ourselves for long term growth and we delivered our 1st full year of non GAAP profitability since 2011. We grew revenue 4% to $5,500,000,000 for the year and further diversified our business as we completed the 1st full year of our semi custom game console shipments and derived approximately 40% of revenues in 2014 from high growth adjacent markets. Specifically in 2014, we also reduced non GAAP corporate operating expenses by 11 from the prior year, while investing in our new products in support of our ARM and X86 strategy and growth areas. Continued our focus on financial performance and reported non GAAP net income in every quarter during 2014 Delivered positive free cash flow for 2014, excluding the special payment of $200,000,000 made to GlobalFoundries early in 2014 the 2020 WSA amendment. Maintain a strong balance sheet ending the year with over $1,000,000,000 in cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities. And finally, we made significant progress in re profiling our term debt, pushing out the majority of term debt maturities to 2019 and beyond, while also decreasing our interest expense run rate year over year. Moving to the specifics of the Q4, where I'll be referencing non GAAP figures except for revenue which is on a GAAP basis. Revenue was $1,240,000,000 down 13% sequentially and 22% year over year, Primarily driven by lower desktop processor, GPU and semi custom SoC sales. Gross margin was 34%, Down 1 percentage point from the prior quarter. As a reminder, 3rd quarter gross margin of 35% included a $27,000,000,000 our 2 percentage point benefit from revenue related to technology licensing. Operating expenses in the 4th quarter were 382,000,000 Down $46,000,000 from the prior quarter due primarily to reduced employee bonuses, restructuring actions and ongoing SENSE Controls. Operating income was $36,000,000 and net income was $2,000,000 with breakeven earnings per share calculated using 781,000,000 diluted shares. During the Q4, we had a number of accounting items that I'd like to address As part of our annual review of goodwill and primarily due to the decline in AMD's stock price, we determine That the total non cash $233,000,000 carrying value of goodwill related to our Computing and Graphics business was impaired. We also had a lower cost of market inventory adjustment of $58,000,000 in the quarter related to our 2nd generation APU products. We expect to sell this inventory over the next several quarters and this adjustment aligns the carrying value of the inventory with market pricing. Lastly, we had restructuring and other special charges amounting to $71,000,000 of which $59,000,000 is expected to be paid in cash. This primarily includes the previously disclosed $57,000,000 of restructuring and $10,000,000 related to our former CEO's Thank you, Steve. The aforementioned accounting items are excluded from our segment results and are included in the all other category. They We are also excluded from our 4th quarter non GAAP earnings per share computation. Net interest expense, taxes the Q1. And other income was $34,000,000 in the quarter, down from $46,000,000 in the prior quarter, primarily due to the benefit of the Q4. Term debt repurchases of $75,000,000 in the 4th quarter, interest rate swap transactions to the Q3 and a tax credit of $3,000,000 Adjusted EBITDA was 96,000,000 Down $37,000,000 from the prior quarter and for 2014 adjusted EBITDA was 505,000,000 Now turning to the business segments. Computing and Graphics revenue was $662,000,000 down 15% sequentially, primarily due to lower desktop processor and GPU sales. Computing and Graphics operating loss was 56,000,000 our operating expenses. Enterprise embedded and semi custom revenue was 577,000,000 down 11% from the prior quarter, primarily due to a decrease in sales of our semi custom SoCs and the operating income of this the Q1 of 2019,000,000 essentially flat from the prior quarter, driven by lower semi custom product sales, These balances totaled $1,040,000,000 at the end of the quarter, up $102,000,000 from the prior quarter. Inventory was $685,000,000 down $212,000,000 from the prior quarter including the impact of the lower the Q1 of cost of market inventory adjustment. Excluding that adjustment, inventory was down 17% quarter on quarter. Our total purchases from GLOBALFOUNDRIES in 2014 were approximately $1,000,000,000 lower than the previously We estimated $1,200,000,000 due to lower 4th quarter purchases. The 4th amendment to the WSA is complete with no the associated special payments or penalties. We are currently negotiating our 2015 WSA amendment In line with our business expectations. Debt as of the end of the quarter was $2,200,000,000 During the quarter, We repurchased an aggregate amount of $75,000,000 of 20.2022 term debt in the open market, paying approximately $0.96 on the dollar and funded these with our asset backed line of credit, which carries a significantly lower interest rate. Free cash flow in the 4th quarter was $94,000,000 an improvement of 105 $1,000,000 from the Q3 of 2014. Before turning to the outlook, let me highlight to the results. As outlook for the Q1 of 2015, AMD expects revenue to decrease 15 the Q1 of 2019. Gross margin is expected to be approximately 34%. Non GAAP operating expenses are expected to be approximately $350,000,000 excluding approximately $20,000,000 of stock based compensation the $48,000,000 and inventory is expected to be essentially flat from 4th quarter levels. As outlook for the full year 2015, we expect to be profitable on a non GAAP basis. Non GAAP operating expenses to be between approximately $340,000,000 to $370,000,000 per quarter in line with expected revenue profile. Taxes of approximately $3,000,000 per quarter cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities balances to be in the optimal zone of 1,000,000,000 capital expenditures of approximately $100,000,000 and inventory to be approximately flat year over year. In closing, as we begin the New Year, we look forward to overcoming our short term challenges our business and driving toward profitability, while maintaining a healthy balance sheet. With that, I'll turn it back to Ruth. Ruth? Thank you, Devinder. Operator, we'd now like you to the telephone. And our first question comes from Harlan Sur of JPMorgan. Please go ahead. Good afternoon and thank you for taking my question. On the Q1 revenue guidance, can you just provide us with a bit more color For the 15% sequential revenue decline, how much of the revenue decline is due to continued channel inventory work downs in your Computing and Graphics segment Versus continued game console seasonality in your embedded and semi custom segments. What I'm trying to figure out is, If both segments are going to be down double digits sequentially or is one going to drive more declines than the other? Yes, Harlan. So thanks for the question. Let me give you some color on that. So if you take typical PC Seasonality would be about minus 7% or so and typical game console seasonality is probably a little bit more than that. What we said in the prepared remarks is that we are taking an opportunity to correct the to Towards Computing and Graphics then towards Enterprise Embedded and Semi Custom. Okay. Thanks for that, Lisa. And then on the Embedded segment, which Grew nicely in Q4 and fall of 2014. As you think about your pipeline in 2015, does the team expect embedded will continue to grow by double digits year over year and if so what end markets will be the biggest contributors to that growth? Yes. So If you look at the overall enterprise embedded and semi custom business, it was very good for us in 2014. I'm actually quite pleased with the progress. Certainly, the majority of that was the semi customer game console unit shipments, which increased significantly. We did also see, as we said, improvements in the embedded business and that grew over 20%. As we go into 2015, it's a little bit early for full year guidance, but I think we would say that we would expect embedded to continue to grow. I think on semi custom, we believe that units will grow as they typically do in the 3rd year of The console ramp and exactly what that will amount to will depend on how the market behaves in 2015. Thanks, Lisa. Thank you, Harlan. Our next question comes from Ian Ng from MKM Partners. Please go Yes. Thanks for taking my question. Just wanted to step through the revenue and segment assumptions to get you to guide to non GAAP profitability This year excluding stock comp, I'm getting when I look at the OpEx ranges and gross margins about flat, I'm getting just low single digit quarters of growth for rest of the year. I think depends on how you look at it from an overall standpoint. Obviously, you have the numbers in terms of our guidance Q1 2015. But you do want to take into consideration one change that I highlighted in the prepared remarks in terms of the OpEx the guidance that I gave that on a non GAAP basis, we are excluding the non cash Stockholm expense expenses overall, so about $80,000,000 for the year. But I think the rest of it from an overall standpoint, we're not giving other than what I have given for 20 the next question. On the non GAAP profitability from where I sit right now with the continued control of expenses And the gross margin obviously in Q1 at 34%. I will give color more about 2015 as we get through Q1 and into Q2. And in particular, we have an Analyst Day that's scheduled on May 6th, where we lay out obviously a more detailed model for the year the Q and A session. Okay, great. And then Lisa, you talked about the launch of Correso highlighting HSA support. Could you talk about the applications for HSA implementations. I mean who's writing code right now in the HSA development environment? And what kind of customers can we have potentially in the future? Yes. So we are enthusiastic about our Carrizo launch that will take place in the Q2. I think if you look at the improvements that will come with HSA is one of them. We'll also have a significantly improved performance in battery life in Carrizo. Relative to HSA applications, I think there are a number of applications both in the consumer space related to video that will perform quite well with Carrizo as well as in other areas. We expect Carrizo to be Beneficial for embedded and other businesses as well. Okay. Thanks. That's all I had. Thanks, Ian. Our next question comes from Mark Lipacis from Jefferies. Please go ahead. Hi. Thanks for taking my question. On the on your expectation for a healthy trajectory in the PC and Graphics business in 2Q, what are the can you help us understand to what extent is that driven by your improvement in the commercial side versus consumer business? To Can you help us with roughly what's the split between these 2? And does that this healthy trajectory, does that mean sequential growth in that business in 2Q? What does that mean in line with normal seasonal patterns? Thank you. Thanks, Mark. Let me try to answer that and give you color on the various So as I mentioned, in our MNC business, we've really made nice progress overall in terms of improving our mix, improving our design wins, Especially going into the second quarter and the second half of the year with our new product launches, I think we feel very good about where we're positioned Commercial will definitely be important as well as improving our overall mix. And then relative from Q1 to Q2, I think the largest the next question. We have had this channel problem for a couple of quarters and it's important for us to correct that. As we look at the downstream channel, we definitely reduced some inventory in Q4 and we will take significant action to reduce that inventory in Q1 And that will give us an opportunity to return to a more normal desktop channel business, which has been relatively successful for us Thank you. A follow-up if I may on the I think you noted 2 to 3 semi new semi custom design wins in the last earnings call. Can you remind us of the timing and nature of those design wins by end market or application. And if can you describe or characterize the pipeline after those 2 or 3 design wins? Thank you. Yes. So on the semi custom design wins and pipeline, at the end of last year, we reported 2 new semi custom wins. They included both X86 and ARM. Timeframe for that revenue is we start NRE. We started NRE last quarter Thanks, Mark. Our next question comes from Matt Ramsay of Canaccord Genuity. Please go ahead. Yes. Thank you for taking my questions. First, Lisa, you had mentioned in the prepared remarks pull from the server customer base, Sort of excited or urging AMD to get back into that market both on X6 and on ARM. Maybe you could talk a little bit more about the nature of that whole. Is it from a is it more ARM or x86 based and how how your design teams are set up to address that challenges given your history in the server business in the past. Sure, Matt. So there's no secret We've lost a lot of market share in the server business. But if you look at fundamentally what's important to those server customers, it is about Knowledge of the enterprise, it is about high performance, compute capability, reliability, all the system capability. And those are things that AMD can uniquely very capable of. So when we look at ARM and X86, I would say the majority of the market will still be X86 for quite some time because of all legacy applications that exist. ARM offers a new opportunity in some of the dense server markets and so we continue to look at that as the growth opportunity where new business will grow. So it's really, I would say, separate parts the success of the market. I think where we add value is that we're able to look at that in totality and optimize The server ecosystem for that. All right. Thank you. And then, Daminder, as a follow-up, it's been mentioned a couple of times in detail You guys are going to change the sort of excluding the stock comp from the non GAAP numbers. I don't know how much you want to comment here today, but just for year over year comparison purposes. Are you guys do you forecast being non GAAP profitable based on including the stock comp or just by excluding it? Thanks. It's excluding the stock comp. It is about $20,000,000 of non cash stock comp expenses very much in line with a lot of our technology peers And kind of more competitive basis. So I think when you look at the OpEx guidance for example that we are providing in Q4 that excludes This excludes the stock comp expense of about $20,000,000 and that's non cash will show up from a segment reporting standpoint in our all other category Very consistent like I said with several of our technology peers. Got you. I was just trying to say if you think you'll be non GAAP profitable if you sort of reverse that new change to the reporting structure, so under the old method. Well, our guidance is non GAAP profitable excluding the Stockholm expense for NUVEVA gain. All right. Fair enough. Thanks. Our next question comes from Joe Moore the floor of Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Great. Thank you. I wonder if you could clarify within the PCCBU business, What's the split between channel and OEM at this point or just qualitatively? And you've mentioned for the last couple of quarters this inventory compression. Is there a demand Aspect of this as well, do you think you're losing share in the channel versus just an inventory correction in the channel? Yes, Joe. We don't talk Sort of the exact split between our channel and our M and C business. It's fair to say our M and C business is larger though. So what we ship into our OEM customers is larger than the channel business. Relative to the inventory versus demand, I think The desktop channel is an area where if you look at it, it's heavily concentrated in China and has had more impact to some of the dynamics in China, especially as you look at the entry level part of the business. I will say though that as As we look at it overall, I think the channel will still be a very good business for us going forward. It's just we need to correct the inventory levels. In the AIB business or the graphics channel, it's a 6 channel. It's a little bit more complicated than that. In the first half of the year, we had first half of twenty fourteen, we had to actually an unusually strong AIB channel because of the Bitcoin effect and then we needed to correct some of that. There are some competitive dynamics in the graphics AIB channel as well. I think from where I see it going forward, we are very focused to the Q1 of 2019. I think we have some good products that are coming out for it. So I do see opportunities And then Intel had mentioned On their call having had some excess Bay Trail inventory at the end of Q3 that they burned off during Q4. Do you think that had any effect on you guys? And do you think that I don't think it particularly had an effect. I mean one of the comments that I made earlier, our ASPs to have really come up nicely with our mix in the OEM business. So from that standpoint, I didn't see a particular effect. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. Our next question comes from John Pitzer of Credit Suisse. Please go ahead. Yes. Good afternoon, guys. Thanks for letting me ask the question. First question to Vinder, just as a clarification. No impact from underspending on the WSA in 2014 or might Does that carry over to 15? And just broadly, how do we think about the parameters for the 15 WSA? Yes. John, you're right. No impact whatsoever. No penalties, no special payments, which is I think what your question is As we reduce the supplies and the purchases to end 2014. 2015, we are in discussions that's in progress to go ahead and close the 2014 supply 2015 supply agreement. And then Lisa in the prepared comments you talked about OpEx kind of between a range of $3.40 to $3.70 per quarter. I'm just kind of curious is the goal here to try to operate the business at kind of a non GAAP breakeven level? And if we do get revenue upside, will you just let that drop through to OpEx? And it kind of asks just a broader question. How do you think about prioritizing spending as you try to maintain non GAAP breakeven. Is that even the right goal to think about given that you already have $1,000,000,000 of kind of release gross cash on the balance sheet. Are you under investing in certain areas right now to try to maintain that non GAAP breakeven? I'll take the first part on the financial, then I'll let Lisa comment on your second question, which is a good one. I think overall, when you look at it from an overall standpoint, we've been very disciplined from an OpEx standpoint. But the question that always comes up internally and Lisa obviously and Mark Wipomast watch that very carefully in terms of making sure that we continue to invest in the R and D area, especially for the products and the technology and all of the future stuff that we are doing. John, you're right. We do want to manage from a viewpoint of overall cash and the P and L that's important. The breakeven P and L has come down significantly as we have managed the OpEx. But the R and D investments, especially with the roadmap That we are projecting for 2015 2016 continue. And you're also right from an OpEx standpoint getting down to the call it 350 level that we are guiding to for Q1. That would go up within the range of the 340, 370 the revenue profile and obviously my desire is to drop that as much as possible to the bottom line as long as we continue to invest in the R and D areas, but I'll let Lisa comment on the R and D investments. Yes, John. So the way I would answer it is something like Certainly, we strive to do better than non GAAP breakeven on a medium term basis. However, when I look at the OpEx and what we're trying Drive. It is really important for us to make the right technology investments and invest in the products that are going to fuel long term growth. So we made some decisions in the Q4. We announced some restructuring actions. I think those were the right set of actions because they were really around streamlining our business And making sure that we were making some priority calls in places. As I look forward, Q4, Q1, we've talked about lower than expected revenue due to some of the channel issues. As we go into Q2 and beyond, we're really focused on growth. And It's really all about the products and customers and getting our products out into the marketplace. So that's really my focus. Thank you, guys. Our next question comes from Vivek Arya from Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Please go ahead. Thank you for taking my question. One for Devinder and then one for Lisa. Kavindra, there are $212,000,000 payable to GlobalFoundries. That will be paid in Q1. So that will bring cash the $800,000,000 or so and then you expect a recovery to get back to the $1,000,000,000 optimal zone. Do I have that right? If you're talking about the $212,000,000 as the AP balance that's associated with Global the balance sheet. And obviously those are purchases that we have made in 2014 before the year ended. And that cash obviously is due to global foundries to be paid, call it in the Q1 of 2015 is when that cash will be paid. But from a purchaser standpoint, The way it works in WSA is the wafers get delivered. And like I said against the 1.2 that we expected when we close the 2014 WSA. We purchased $1,000,000,000 worth of wafers. As we ended 2014, we made a mutual decision to reduce the supply and purchases based on market conditions and the 2014 WSA is complete. We are in discussions about the 2015 WSA. The supply continues based on the good relationship With our partner, there is no issue there, but we are working out the details to fully finalize and sign the 2015 WSA. But Davinder, you expect when that payment is made for the cash to perhaps temporarily dip below the $1,000,000,000 optimal zone and then I'm just trying to understand the trajectory of your gross cash during the year. Yes. No, I understand. I understand the question. I think you're saying, okay, you got money to GlobalFoundries, but I have other accounts payables and accounts receivable due to. So net net, the goal is to manage our cash balances In the optimal zone of $1,000,000,000 So from my standpoint, as we end Q1, when we are sitting here in April talking about the Q1 cash balances, I expect to be in the optimal zone of over $1,000,000,000 And Vivek, you have seen that over the last many, many quarters Despite some challenges off and on, we've been able to manage the cash pretty well in the optimal zone and well above the target minimum of $600,000,000 Got it. And then maybe for Lisa as you mentioned that game console units could Grow somewhat this year. I'm interested in understanding what happens to your ASPs now that you're in the 3rd year of the launch. Should we think of your ASP AMDs ASPs be sort of flattish or could they be up or down to What happens typically during the 3rd year of this kind of very prominent launch? Yes. So Vivek, we have long term agreements with our customers to ASPs. So there is some ASP decline. It's fair to say that it's less than it was in the early years. Got it. And just one last thing to look at the bigger picture here, Lisa, you're doing a very good job managing cost and AMD has always had good technology. But I'm trying to understand how you get out of this perennial restructuring mode And start growing again, because it appears to me that all the benefits of all the pipeline you're building in semi custom continue to be offset by some of the pressures on the traditional PC and the GPU market. Is it that you expect those traditional markets to start recovering? Or do you think we might be underestimating the benefits that you might get on the semi custom side? Thank you. Yes. So Vivek, I mean, if I just take a step back and just talk about what we're trying to do overall in our strategy. We really are a technology company. It's all about our IP and our products and what we put into the marketplace. If you look at our two businesses, I think we've shown that we can grow a business. The enterprise embedded and semi custom growth, Very nice growth, very predictable, profitable. I'm confident that's on the right track in terms of what we're going to do across those market segments. I will say, if anything, we want to make some bolder technology bets in that area to fuel that growth. And then on the computing and graphics business, I do believe that we will Stabilize's business. I mean the last couple of years have been difficult, some relative to market conditions, some relative to things that we could have done better. But overall, it's 300,000,000 units. That's a big market. And so most every customer would agree that AMD can add value in that space and we're focused on making sure that our products Really add value to that ecosystem. Thank you. Our next question comes from Hans Mosesmann from Raymond James. Please go ahead. Thanks. Hey, Lisa, some clarification on really the second half of last year. Was the inventory situation that you're dealing with now, is that how much of it is the competitive dynamic and how much of it was just end demand being weak in China, example. I think it's different in the different markets. I think with desktop, it's more end demand relative to China and Perhaps we were a little bit long on inventory earlier in the year. I think in the graphics channel, again, I said it was a bit volatile In the first half of the year, some of that is due to competitive dynamic, but I think some of that is, as I said, due to the fact that the first half of the year was so strong. Okay. And then as a follow-up on the ARM side of the equation, you mentioned that you expect shipment later this year. It seems There's somewhat of a delay. What's going on there specifically with Seattle and how it got sampled and how it's being adopted? Yes. So we have Seattle actually sampled in a number of different customers and ecosystem partners. I think with The good news is that the ecosystem is designing on AMD silicon. So I think that's good. Relative to the overall ramp, we always We've seen a lot of ecosystem partners spending quite a bit of time on the software on our silicon. Okay, super. Thanks. Thanks Hans. Our next question comes from Christopher Rolland from FBR Capital Markets. Please go ahead. Hey, guys. Thanks for the question. So looks like Samsung and GloFO are potentially making some headway here on the foundry side towards 2014. Can you guys talk about your plans to leverage that or to avoid that And what we can expect through the year for leading edge silicon. Thanks. Yes. So Chris, we are actively designing A number of products in 14, the 14 nanometer technology, I think FinFET will be very important for us And from a competitive standpoint, so it's an important technology for us. Okay. And then also If you want if you can provide any details on timing, I'd love that. But outside of that, can you talk about the slide and PC operating profits And when you expect to sort of return to breakeven and whether that OpEx step down again in Q1, is that all coming from Compute and Graphics? Thanks. Yes, I'll take the first part of that and I'll let Devinder take the second part of that. So relative to timing on FinFET, we will be talking more about our long term roadmaps at our Financial Analyst Day. So I'll hold that question there. And Devinder, you want to take the OpEx? Yes. On the OpEx side, obviously, with the decline in the business and in particular with the guidance we're providing in Q1 here, the OpEx has come down as you observed. And I would say 2 things. Lisa said in the prepared remarks that we are investing on the R and D side for the embedded enterprise and semi custom business With the things that we talked about on embedded, it's growing pretty nicely. The enterprise side on the server piece, we need to make the investments for the customers so that we And return higher market share from an overall standpoint. And then the semi custom side in addition to the design wins that we have, we have a healthy pipeline and we want to continue to grow that business. So I think overall when you look at the OpEx side of the house, it is probably true that on the CG side is where the expenses are More than probably in the embedded enterprise and semi custom. But overall, we are managing the OpEx in line with revenue while protecting the investments on the R and D. Great. Thanks guys. Our next question comes from Ross Seymore Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead. Hi. I guess first question is for Lisa. On that inventory side of the equation, What are you guys planning to do differently if anything going forward? You've already answered a little bit about what you thought the causes of the excess inventory would be. Is there anything you would do in Perspect Differently. And looking forward, does that mean you keep the channel tighter than before? Are there any business implications that we should be aware of? Yes, Ross. So on the channel, I mean, I think in general, it's much better to keep supply sort of in line with demand and certainly That will be important for us going forward. Secondly, the sell through velocity, I think, will be Related by our products and as we put new products into the channel over the next couple of quarters, I think that will increase sell through velocity. I did mention China as one of the areas where we have to just see how that develops and how the DIY market, in particular, develops. But again, I think this is about Just matching supply with demand and not getting out of sync there. And I guess as a follow-up one for Devinder. In the EEFC segment, you mentioned that the operating income was pretty much flat sequentially and it sounded like royalties were the cause of that. Can you give us a little bit of color on what were those royalties? Is that just a seasonal effect that goes away? Or how should we think about those going forward? I don't think they go away. They were obviously Very nice in the Q4 timeframe based on some technology licensing that we have related to royalties that we collect, but they don't go away. They continue in 2015. So it's not just a seasonal effect? Well, I would say in Q4, it was nicer than what I would Otherwise expect, so It is somewhat related to end shipments. So because of the end shipments were higher in Q4, they were higher in Q4. Okay, great. Thank you. Our next question comes from Sanjay Choudharyja from Nomura. UroL. Please go ahead. Hi, Lisa. A question on gaming console. You indicated 30,000,000 shipments this year. And if I go back historically When these gaming consoles are launched, I think the 1st year sales were roughly between $15,000,000 $20,000,000 My question is it seems like this higher sales could be because of expanded And as you look into next year, what gives you confidence that you could grow this in terms of units or in terms of your revenue into 2015. And then I have a follow-up. Sure. So Sanjay, let me just clarify. In terms of the unit shipments, those are unit shipments from our customers to end users, and that's something most of that is publicly available data from what Sony and Microsoft Have published. So relative to historical, I think most people will say that historically the game console shipments in this generation our higher than in the previous generation. And you can come up with all kinds of reasons for that. Some of that is sort of the price points the holiday season. Some of that is its software titles that are available at a I think the main thing is, as we look at any holiday season, we want to make sure that there's not a lot of inventory that's sitting with our customers And we see that that's very fairly well balanced. And so that gives us confidence as you go into 2015 and you see new titles that are launched And those come out that it should be a fairly normal market. And a question on desktop, it seems like sales declined 30% Sequentially and kind of declining at a similar level. Agreed, you indicated inventory is a factor here. But key question is that to You're not saying that the demand decline was because of a road map issue or a vacuum in the OEM support to carry these desktop SKUs with OEM or would OEM ask you to burden a greater portion of the R and D costs associated in carrying these SKUs, because this has really become a very The scale of this business has become really small. And so question essentially is what kind of challenges do you see When you have the right product to revive the desktop market. Sure. So the way I would say it is something like this. It's Clear that our mobile products are very competitive. We've invested heavily in mobile and you see that with some of the That we've had relative to desktop, mobile and desktop actually share a lot of technology. So certainly there's a lot of sharing there in terms of the cores and the IP and the designs. There are things that we will do to improve the competitive of our desktop our products as we go forward. And so again, I view it as a market that we know well. And within the spend envelope that we've already Define, we will continue to compete in both the desktop and mobile markets. Thank you so much. Our next question comes from Cody Acree from Ascendiant Capital. Please go ahead. Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my question. Lisa, regarding the inventory I guess as you look at not just the consumer side, but also the enterprise side, what level of visibility do you think you have comfort with this cleaning up in Q1. And then on the enterprise side, knowing that it looks as though maybe the Microsoft XP upgrade cycles tailing off a bit. How much are you counting on share gains in the enterprise side to help out? Yes. So relative to the Channel inventory, it is primarily consumer and it's primarily the, as I said, the DIY channel that we're We're highlighting. Relative to enterprise, I think our progress in enterprise is less due to the overall market And more due to just having products that are more capable in the enterprise. If you think about how our products have evolved From, let's call it, fairly low end to now, as we get to our higher end products are very competitive. I think that plus the design wins that we have to give us some optimism about commercial. And then just as you look around the rest of your businesses with some of your semi custom wins not really expected to kick in until 2016. Embedded grew nicely, but those have pretty long tails as well. I guess As you look into the second half of this year, what are you doing now that really might be able to drive surprises in the second half? Or does a lot of this growth become more of a 2016 story? I think the key for us, as I On EESC, the enterprise embedded in semi custom, I think we have a good path. Some of it will depend on what the market does with game consoles and we'll just to I think on the Computing and Graphics business, we can improve our execution and there is a lot of focus at least from my standpoint to ensure that our 2015 product launches are quite strong. So that's important for us to really stabilize that business and that will certainly be a to our second half performance. Great. Thanks guys. Good luck. Operator, we'll take one more question please. Our final question comes from Stephen Chin of UBS. Please go ahead. Great. Thanks for squeezing me in. Lisa, first question for you, if I could. In terms of the strategy for the PC market both processors and APs, can you help me better understand a little bit more of how we should think about growth over the course of this year. When we look at your new products such as Carrizo, even though it's one process behind your main competitor, you You guys are definitely driving in the value and pulling on the traditional technology levers. But in terms of consumer market and even enterprise corporate Certainly, your main competitor there is pushing new form factors, fanless designs as well as kind of new user interface technologies such as 3 d cameras to help kick start interest there and continue growing. What gives you the And sort of if you have any metrics that can help us match up the new technologies you're driving in the market this year with growth either in the consumer market and or corporate. Yes. So for the Computing and Graphics business, I think the most important thing for us to do to continue the work that we've done on selling up our stack and improving our mix. And we've demonstrated that in 20 2014 with our OEM customers. As we go into the new product cycle for both consumer and commercial, there are some key feature sets That we will offer, I think you'll find that although we are in 28 nanometer technology, the performance and the battery life as well as some of the features will be a quite differentiated, especially around video and some of these multimedia applications. And then as you look in commercial, I We're quite underrepresented today. And so it is an opportunity to grow just based on the design wins that we have seen and the form factors that we will be in 2015 that we were not in 2014. So we certainly have to demonstrate that over the next couple of quarters, but We're doing all the key things to make sure that we get these products further into the market. Okay. And one question for Devinder on the OpEx side. You mentioned the $3.40 to $3.70 per quarter range for OpEx this year. Any color on kind of quarter to quarter variability we should see on that spending at the high or the low end of that range, whether it's product tape outs or marketing expenses, etcetera? Thank you. Yes. I think that both of those points are right. As we to the second half, typically the business is stronger obviously with the revenue profile there may be some additional marketing related expenses. And then we do have product tape outs and some engineering work that kicks in and that could take the expenses high. I expect to manage within the range of the $340,000,000 to $370,000,000 throughout the year and in particular manage it tightly in the first half of twenty fifteen Including Q1 where we pegged it at about $350,000,000 Perfect. Thank you. Thank you. Operator, that concludes our call. If you could wrap it up, please. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today's conference. Thank you for your attendance. You may now disconnect. Everyone. Have a great day.