Despite sucking up a big charge for the declining value of its $5.6 billion 2006 acquisition of ATI Technologies, PC chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices was still not able to cut it fourth-quarter losses in line with the Wall Street expectations!

The second-largest maker of central processing units for PCs reported a $1.16 billion fourth-quarter revenue, which is a 33 percent fall against the $1.19 billion figures estimated by the analysts.

The Sunnyvale, California-based company on Thursday posted its $1.42 billion, or $2.34 a share, fourth-quarter net loss, as against the previous year's loss of $1.77 billion, or $3.06 a share.

Certain items excluded, AMD posted a 69 cents a share fourth-quarter loss, though the analysts' average estimates stood at a loss of 56 cents a share, according to Reuters Estimates.

Commenting on the AMD figures, Betsy Van Hees, a Caris & Company analyst, said: "It was definitely disappointing and worse than what we expected - AMD certainly has a challenging road ahead."

Along with the near-vanishing sales of PCs having depleted the demand for their chips and software, another trend hurting AMD is a revived price war with its rival Intel, holding 80% of the microprocessor market.

After taking all existing factors into consideration, AMD said it expects its revenue in the first quarter to be even lower than the fourth quarter figures!