AMD CEO's Shoddy Record Taints Turnaround

Even worse, the chip group bore the brunt of the 15,000-employee layoff that Motorola announced in September 1998.

In fairness, a major, industrywide downturn in the semiconductor business played a big part in Motorola's problems. And key missteps within the rest of the Motorola organization, such as betting too heavily on analog cell phones instead of digital phones, also reverberated into the chip group.

But the radical nature of Ruiz's plan, and its failure to pay off, made him a prime target for the group's problems and earned him a variety disparaging monikers within the ranks, most famously "Hector the Sector Wrecker."

By 2004, Motorola had washed its hands completely of chips, divesting itself of assets into what is now Freescale Semiconductor (following the earlier spinoff of On Semicondcutor(ONNN Quote)).

But Ruiz was gone before the end, having taken the job of president at AMD in 2000.

Whether AMD represents the setting of the Sector Wrecker's second act will become clear in the next few months.

AMD spokesperson Drew Prairie says he can't comment on Ruiz's experience at Motorola, but notes that AMD and Motorola are different companies, facing different challenges and different opportunities. And he points out that the restructuring at AMD is being orchestrated by both Ruiz and President Dirk Meyer, who serve together in a so-called Office of the CEO.

In many ways however, the challenge is even greater at AMD.

Unlike Motorola, which had a rich corporate parent to carry the ailing chip division, AMD must absorb the shock of its deteriorating financial performance on its own. Nor does AMD have any market sewn up or to itself, depriving it of a cushion to fall back on in tough times. The company competes with Intel(INTC Quote), the world's dominant maker of PC microprocessors, which is currently fielding its strongest product line in years.