Just when you thought it could not get any worse for AMD, someone throws another gallon of gasoline on the fire to stoke the flames. Earlier this week, DailyTech reported that AMD intends to cut 1,600 jobs by year's end to improve its financials.

AMD, which has yet to release its first quarter earnings, issued guidance suggesting that its Q1 revenues will come in 15% lower than the year ago period at about $1.5B USD. AMD experienced losses in every sector of its business and we'll be able to see the full damage report once the official tally is brought down from Sunnyvale, CA.

In the mean time, the company today lost its Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and Senior Vice President, Phil Hester. According to AMD's bio on Hester, which has since been removed from the site, he was "responsible for setting the architectural and product strategies and plans for AMD’s microprocessor business." Hester also chaired AMD's Technology Council.

According to MarketWatch, Hester wishes to "pursue other opportunities" in his absence from AMD. Strangely, AMD says that there will be no replacement for Hester at the CTO position.

Hester's departure couldn't have come at a worse time for AMD. AMD is just now trying to gain some traction after shipping B3 Opterons sans the TLB bug that made the news circuits in December 2007.

AMD hopes to push its Opteron and Phenom processors based on a 65nm manufacturing to 2.6GHz by the fall of 2008. 45nm Shanghai processors will have to wait until early 2009 if all things go according to schedule for AMD.