Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD) shareholders Wednesday approved a spinoff of the company's manufacturing operations, in a deal designed to improve AMD's balance sheet and refocus the company on designing chips instead of making them.

More than 94% of the shares represented at the meeting were voted to allow AMD to issue stock and warrants that will effectively let the company spin off its manufacturing facilities into a joint venture known as Foundry Co., formed with the Advanced Technology Investment Co., an Abu Dhabi investment fund.

Shares of AMD traded recently at $2.46, up 9 cents, or 3.8%.

The deal includes an investment by Mubadala Development Co., also of Abu Dhabi, of roughly $800 million.

Last week, the Sunnyvale, Calif., maker of chips for computers and servers postponed a scheduled shareholder meeting because the company failed to meet the required 50% quorum. The company barely topped that figure this time, with 50.26% of the shares eligible to vote represented at the meeting, according to an AMD spokesman.

-By Jerry A. DiColo, Dow Jones Newswires; 201-938-5670

(Don Clark contributed to this report.)