Richard said he was leaving to join a "different business segment," but did not disclose any details. The company said Richard's departure was on "completely amicable terms," and the decision was his own.
"After 20 years in the PC industry -- and five of the most professionally rewarding years here at AMD -- I have decided to make a move to a different business segment," Richard said in a company statement..
AMD chairman and chief executive Hector Ruiz said Richard has built a "world-class" sales and marketing organization with enduring relationships with major PC and server manufacturers. "AMD is fully focused on leveraging the momentum we established during the last five years to achieve even greater levels of success ahead," he said.
Richard is leaving a company that's struggling to recover against rival Intel's onslaught of new product releases and advancements for more than a year. AMD's total losses in the last three quarters have reached nearly $1.8 billion, a major reversal after taking market share from Intel in 2006.
Nevertheless, AMD in July rolled out its plans for microprocessors that meet the needs of hardware ranging from servers and high-performance computers to mobile phones and consumer electronics. Despite the losses, the company has said it has no intention of making major cuts in operations, and expects to break even by the fourth quarter.
A major component of AMD's planned recovery is the release of a quad-core server processor, codenamed Barcelona. AMD is expected to launch the chip in September, and is also expected to release this year a quad-core desktop processor, codenamed Phenom. Intel has been shipping quad-core products for a year, so AMD will have to contend with its rival's lead.