AMD is back to profitability and this is mainly thanks to Intel's $1.25 billion settlement.

In the last quarter Q4 2009 AMD earned $1.52 per share on a total net income of $1.778 billion. This is naturally much better compared to Q4 2008 when AMD lost $1.424 billion or $2.34 dollars per share.

AMD posted $1.646 billion sales or a massive increase of 42 percent year-on-year, and up 18 percent from the last quarter. This is definitely more than people expected and we can probably blame the end of the year deals for that.

AMD's CPU division made $ 1,214 billion which is 14 percent up compared to Q3 2009 and 39 percent up compared to Q4 2008. However, in 2009 it made $4.131 billion, some nine percent less than in 2008.

Graphics also helped out as ATI made some $427 million in Q4, which is 40 percent up from Q3 2009, the quarter when ATI clearly could not ship enough of its chips and it is an impressive 58 percent more than in Q4 2008. In the whole of 2009 ATI made $1,206 billion, or four percent more than in 2008.

Intel’s settlement made AMD profitable in 2009 as it overall earned $304 million or $0.45 per share which is much better than $3,159 billion loss or $5.17 per share in 2008.

The announcement boosted AMD’s share 0.12 cent to $8.99, but we are quite sure than in Q1 2010 AMD won’t have such good earnings.