Intel’s Chief Engineer Departs During Executive Team Reorganization

The departure comes after the company falls behind in chip production.

Semiconductor giant Intel announced the coming departure of its chief engineer Murthy Renduchintala, scheduled to leave the company on August 3. The announcement was made by Intel CEO Bob Swan as a part of several changes being made to the company’s technology organization and executive team aimed at keeping Intel the leader in production of microprocessor chips. Swan said that the Technology, Systems Architecture and Client Group will be divided into multiple teams all reporting directly to him.

Soon to be departed. D. Murthy Renduchintala, Chief Engineering Officer and Group President of Technology, Systems Architecture & Client Group at Intel Corporation.

Soon to be departed. Dr. Murthy Renduchintala, Chief Engineering Officer and Group President of Technology, Systems Architecture & Client Group at Intel Corporation.

Technology Development will be led by Intel veteran Ann Kelleher who has been working to increase supply capacity during the COVID-19 pandemic and pushed to speed up the company’s development of the 10 nanometer chips. Keyvan Esfarjani who has been in charge of Intel’s Non-Volatile Memory Solutions Group will now lead Manufacturing and Operations. A search is underway to find someone to head the Design Engineering team while Josh Walden serves in the interim. Raja Koduri is now in charge of the Architecture, Software and Graphics team and Randhir Thakur heads the Supply Chain team.

“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.”

The main impetus for these changes is the delay in production of next generation chips that resulted in a drop in stock shares. Renduchintala, who was previously Qualcomm’s president, was hired in 2015 to help keep Intel’s industry edge in chip development. However, last week Intel announced that its 7nm chip is delayed by six months, sending the company’s stock value downward. Intel’s recent stumbles have opened the door for other companies, such as AMD, NVIDIA, and ARM, to seize new opportunities.

AMD stock shares have ticked up following its ability to produce 7nm chips, gaining some former Intel customers. In June, Apple announced that it will switch from Intel’s chips to custom ARM-based processors in Mac products, anticipating better performance, energy efficiency and integration with other Apple devices that already utilize ARM chips.