Monday, July 27th 2020

Intel Makes Changes to Technology Organization

Today, Intel CEO Bob Swan announced changes to the company's technology organization and executive team to accelerate product leadership and improve focus and accountability in process technology execution. Effective immediately, the Technology, Systems Architecture and Client Group (TSCG) will be separated into the following teams, whose leaders will report directly to the CEO:

Technology Development, led by Dr. Ann Kelleher. An accomplished Intel leader, Kelleher has been head of Intel manufacturing, where she ensured continuous operations through the COVID-19 pandemic while increasing supply capacity to meet customer needs and accelerating the ramp of Intel's 10 nm process. She will now lead Intel technology development focusing on 7 nm and 5 nm processes. Dr. Mike Mayberry, who has been leading Technology Development, will consult and assist in the transition until his planned retirement at the end of the year. Mayberry has a 36-year track record of innovation at Intel, during which he has made key contributions in technology development and as the leader of Intel Labs.

Manufacturing and Operations, led by Keyvan Esfarjani. Esfarjani most recently led manufacturing for Intel's Non-Volatile Memory Solutions Group (NSG), in which role he set the vision and strategy for Intel's memory manufacturing and led a rapid expansion of capacity. He will now lead global manufacturing operations and continue Kelleher's work driving product ramp and the build-out of new fab capacity.

Design Engineering, led in the interim by Josh Walden while Intel conducts an accelerated global search to identify a permanent world-class leader. Walden is a proven leader in technology manufacturing and platform engineering. Most recently, he has been leading the Intel Product Assurance and Security Group (IPAS), which will continue to report to him.

Architecture, Software and Graphics will continue to be led by Raja Koduri. Koduri has responsibility for driving the development of Intel's architecture and software strategy, and dedicated graphics product portfolio. Under his leadership, we will continue to invest in our software capability as a strategic asset and further build-out software engineering with cloud, platform, solutions and services expertise.

Supply Chain will continue to be led by Dr. Randhir Thakur. Thakur will report directly to the CEO as chief supply chain officer, recognizing the ever-growing importance of this role and our relationships with key players in the ecosystem. Thakur and his team are charged with ensuring supply chain is a competitive advantage for Intel.

As a result of these changes, Murthy Renduchintala will leave Intel on Aug. 3, 2020.

"I look forward to working directly with these talented and experienced technology leaders, each of whom is committed to driving Intel forward during this period of critical execution," said Swan. "I also want to thank Murthy for his leadership in helping Intel transform our technology platform. We have the most diverse portfolio of leadership products in our history and, as a result of our six pillars of innovation and disaggregation strategy, much more flexibility in how we build, package and deliver those products for our customers."
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24 Comments on Intel Makes Changes to Technology Organization

#1
HugsNotDrugs
Intel's problems began long ago when they became a fatted cat enjoying huge margins in the x86 market without much competition. Happy to earn large margins they took few risks and as a result missed out on significant opportunities over the last eight years.

Now, with the x86 margins slimming and a significant fumble on advancements in process nodes they have very little to fall back on.

Intel remains an impressive company but they lost their much-needed scrappy attitude long ago and I suspect will never recover.
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#2
jeremyshaw
I don't know if scrappy attitude would even work for a company of this size. The last great realm was Andy Groves' extreme corporate paranoia. By the time leadership was granted to the first non-researcher/engineer (all of whom were also PhDs from respected engineering programs), Otellini in 2005, it was a well run juggernaut. A crazed, monopolistic juggernaut, but one that was technologically dominant and surprisingly agile.

Either way, moving deck chairs on the Titanic are just about the least important thing Intel could be doing, IMO. I have no real, comprehensive solutions for how to resolve Intel's current problems, since they reach back decades.
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#3
Caring1
The shit has hit the fan and Intel is in panic mode.
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#4
sergionography
Good riddance. I kept hearing that there was a huge power struggle at Intel and Murphy was behind much of it. I heard he was behind Jim Keller leaving, and was even giving Raja a hard time.
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#5
EarthDog
Anyone else hear that whip crack? Yeet!
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#6
DeathtoGnomes
sergionographyGood riddance. I kept hearing that there was a huge power struggle at Intel and Murphy was behind much of it. I heard he was behind Jim Keller leaving, and was even giving Raja a hard time.
Not sure who Murphy is exactly, but reading this my first was thought that there had to be a lot of bickering and in-fighting lead to these changes, and reporting to the CEO is like reporting to Mom&Dad, if you've been a bad boy. :shadedshu:
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#7
sergionography
DeathtoGnomesNot sure who Murphy is exactly, but reading this my first was thought that there had to be a lot of bickering and in-fighting lead to these changes, and reporting to the CEO is like reporting to Mom&Dad, if you've been a bad boy. :shadedshu:
I didn't know much of him until those news started popping up since Jim Keller's resignation. Basically Murphy was doing power hungry moves to try to clear any competition/CEO contenders. And that he tried doing the same with Raja. I think I heard it on Adoredtv? It was just the other day
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#8
thesmokingman
DeathtoGnomesNot sure who Murphy is exactly, but reading this my first was thought that there had to be a lot of bickering and in-fighting lead to these changes, and reporting to the CEO is like reporting to Mom&Dad, if you've been a bad boy. :shadedshu:
Murthy is their or was their Chief of Engineering. He's so awesome that every shrink under him has failed so you can see why he wanted to oust anyone who came close, lmao. With that much success it's only brought more lawsuits. Intel's got lawsuits up the ying yang and now a new class action for defrauding investors with their everything is greaaat with 10nm/7nm progress spiels.
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#9
Imouto
sergionographyGood riddance. I kept hearing that there was a huge power struggle at Intel and Murphy was behind much of it. I heard he was behind Jim Keller leaving, and was even giving Raja a hard time.
To be honest that Raja part could be totally justified. The guy is a hack of an engineer and is better at selling smoke and mirrors.
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#10
john_
Intel lost Jim Keller, so they promoted Dr Ann Kelleher?
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#11
Assimilator
To be fair, this isn't shuffling of roles, it's defining them. Seems like previously there wasn't very well-defined leadership and accountability in certain areas, and now Swan is introducing it. Way past time, and how accountable the people in question will be is yet to be seen, but on paper (and to investors) it looks like a good thing.
sergionographyGood riddance. I kept hearing that there was a huge power struggle at Intel and Murphy was behind much of it. I heard he was behind Jim Keller leaving, and was even giving Raja a hard time.
Murthy. With a T. Not a P.
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#12
Caring1
john_Intel lost Jim Keller, so they promoted Dr Ann Kelleher?
They wanted Helen Keller but she wasn't answering the phone. ;)
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#13
RandallFlagg
The announcement is a nothingburger. It looks and reads just like any of hundreds of other meaningless senior leadership moves / reorgs from corporations - full of glittering generalities and key words, and constantly repeating the word "Leader" or "Leadership". The reason they repeat the word "leader' is to convince the reader that they are leaders, it's a form of persuasion.

You could go to a story generator and fill it full of Swan's key words, rearrange the results fill in some names and basically get the same thing.
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#14
lexluthermiester
HugsNotDrugsand I suspect will never recover.
On that we disagree. This back and forth between AMD and Intel has been going on for more than 25 years. Intel will bounce back with an answer to AMD's recent success. This is not Intel's "swan-song"...

(Yes, pun intended)
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#15
medi01
btarunrAn accomplished Intel leader, Kelleher has been head of Intel manufacturing...
I'm puzzled with how on earth is that a good background, given the circumstances, cough.
btarunrArchitecture, Software and Graphics will continue to be led by Raja Koduri
Good news for AMD, I guess.
lexluthermiesterThis back and forth between AMD and Intel has been going on for more than 25 years. Intel will bounce back with an answer to AMD's recent success.
But there was no back and forth on fab nodes, Intel was ahead of the planet.
And suddenly we have TSMC leaping years ahead of Intel.
If Intel cedes 40%-ish market share to AMD, it isn't clear if having own fabs will be sustainable.

On the other front, the gap between R&D investment is gargantuan. AMD is a lean organization, compared to Intel, to be competitive in fabless vs fabless mode, Intel needs major restructuring.
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#16
lexluthermiester
medi01But there was no back and forth on fab nodes, Intel was ahead of the planet.
And suddenly we have TSMC leaping years ahead of Intel.
If Intel cedes 40%-ish market share to AMD, it isn't clear if having own fabs will be sustainable.
While that's a good point, something similar was at play in 2004/2005. AMD was kicking butt at the time and Intel didn't have an answer. Pentium4 and PentiumD was floundering hard for several years against Athlon64 and that lineup. Intel changed the game in 2006 with the "Core" line up, specifically Core2. I predict Intel will have an answer for Ryzen. When that will happen is anyone's guess.
medi01On the other front, the gap between R&D investment is gargantuan.
Exactly.
medi01AMD is a lean organization, compared to Intel, to be competitive in fabless vs fabless mode, Intel needs major restructuring.
AMD is lean because they needed to be. Intel does not have that need. Even they did, it's not possible for them to go fabless at this time.
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#17
Assimilator
Caring1They wanted Helen Keller but she wasn't answering the phone. ;)
Maybe 'cos she's dead.
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#18
EarthDog
AssimilatorMaybe 'cos she's dead.
......or the other, less obvious(?) reasons.... lololol
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#19
TechLurker
lexluthermiesterOn that we disagree. This back and forth between AMD and Intel has been going on for more than 25 years. Intel will bounce back with an answer to AMD's recent success. This is not Intel's "swan-song"...

(Yes, pun intended)
Swan Lake when?
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#20
kapone32
To me this shows how being too big has hurt Intel. What I look at are the positions that each of those candidates held. Those are arguably two of Intel's most successful stories. There is no doubt that demand is super high during the pandemic but you can still buy (some) 10th Gen CPUs and definitely 10th Gen laptops. Intel's NVME solutions at one time held the value and extreme market covered. Intel got caught with their pants down but it is much more than that as a publicly traded company (with super rich shareholders) of it's size; profit is the motivating factor in existence rather than innovation. When AMD released FX Intel gave us Sandybridge nuff said. The public opinion of FX meant that Intel did not really plan to spend the money to upgrade their fabs to 10NM. When they actually had to do it (thank's to Ryzen's success) they did not have the ability to deliver. The stock lost 15% on Friday so something had to be done. The public perception is so far from the financial truth between these 2 companies though that this is not really a move that will bear any quick fruit but it does put the CEO in direct contact with what is essentially R&D and Supply chain without the board's influence, which in a technology has the propensity to be a good thing.
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#21
DeathtoGnomes
AssimilatorMurthy. With a T. Not a P.
Intentional :rolleyes: :roll:
lexluthermiesterI predict Intel will have an answer for Ryzen.
yea, with 10 times more glue than an AMD mcm chip!
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#22
EarthDog
DeathtoGnomesIntentional :rolleyes: :roll:


yea, with 10 times more glue than an AMD mcm chip!
IDGAF if it's held together by fecal matter with grass in it.. is it faster than the competition? L
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#23
HugsNotDrugs
lexluthermiesterOn that we disagree. This back and forth between AMD and Intel has been going on for more than 25 years. Intel will bounce back with an answer to AMD's recent success. This is not Intel's "swan-song"...

(Yes, pun intended)
Intel will compete but will likely never enjoy near-monopoly positions or the massive margins that went with those position.
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#24
lexluthermiester
HugsNotDrugsIntel will compete but will likely never enjoy near-monopoly positions or the massive margins that went with those position.
We have the mobile revolution and ARM to thank for that.
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