Sunnyvale (CA) – Some say that it would have been a miracle if AMD could have met its fourth quarter revenue guidance, which was confirmed by the company as recently as November 14. Today, the company said that it is preparing for a revenue decline that will be more than twice as steep as Intel’s recent cut.

AMD said that it now expects fourth quarter revenue to come in 25% below its Q3 result of close to $1.59 billion, which puts the new sales guidance into the $1.19 - $1.20 region, which is far below a revenue target that would allow AMD to post a profit (about $1.5 billion). The Q4 guidance number does not include process technology license revenue, the manufacturer said.

AMD did not comment on the reasons of the guidance cut and which product segments where affected the most.

Intel told investors last month that it expects its Q4 revenue to drop almost 12% sequentially, which puts the company’s guidance into the neighborhood of the Q4 2000 result, which was also preceded by a profit warning – one of the first warnings that hinted to the burst of the dotcom bubble back then. AMD answered Intel’s warning with a note that it stood by its revenue guidance and mentioned that to reporters and analysts during its analyst day event on November 13.

In Q4 of 2007, AMD reported revenue of $1.77 billion.