Intel chip head quits for ‘personal reasons’
Intel is searching for a new leader to its chip team after the boss of the division quit the company with immediate effect.
Jim Keller, previously senior vice president of silicon engineering, is leaving Intel after only six months in the top job, with “personal reasons” cited as the cause of departure.
“Intel appreciates Mr Keller’s work over the past two years helping them continue advancing Intel’s product leadership and they wish him and his family all the best for the future,” Intel said in a statement.
New Intel chips
Keller was a well-respected figure in the chipmaking industry, joining Intel to great fanfare in 2018 before his promotion to the top job late in 2019. The Register notes that his job covered a number of roles involving the company’s silicon products, from product planning to streamlining manufacturing processes.
He will stay with Intel as a consultant for the next six months, the company noted.
Intel only this week revealed more details on its latest silicon line-up, with the new Lakefield processors showcasing a completely new chip design. This will pair a 10nm Sunny Cove CPU core with four lower-power Tremont cores, as well as a new Foveros 3D stacking technology which will essentially stack the entire SoC and memory into one tiny package.
This offering should help device manufacturers design and build thinner, lighter and more powerful laptops and mobile workstations over the coming months and years.
Before joining Intel, Keller was well-known for his work at Apple, where he helped create the company’s A4 and A5 processors among other work, along with stints at Tesla and AMD, where he worked on some of the latter’s most well-recognised microarchitectures.
Intel has taken Keller’s resignation as the chance to shuffle its executive leadership, noting that the company, “has a vastly experienced team of technical leaders within its Technology, Systems Architecture and Client Group (TSCG)”.
This includes a promotion for Sundari Mitra, the former CEO and founder of NetSpeed Systems and the current leader of Intel’s Configurable Intellectual Property and Chassis Group, who will now lead a newly created IP Engineering Group focused on developing best-in-class IP. Also getting a boost is Gene Scuteri, who will head Intel’s Xeon and Networking Engineering Group.
The company noted that these moves will help Intel as it looks to begin, “the next phase of our world-class engineering organization and look forward to executing on our exciting roadmap of products.”
Via The Register
