Intel Rehires Retired CPU Architect for an “exciting high performance CPU project”

Intel Rehires Retired CPU Architect for an

Intel Rehires Retired CPU Architect for an “exciting high-performance CPU project”

On February 15th, Pat Gelsinger will become the CEO of Intel, and his arrival is already having an impact on the company. Intel’s culture will change, and that change has already drawn talent back into the company.

Glenn Hinton, the lead architect of Nehalem, is returning to Intel after three years of retirement. Hinton has stated on LinkedIn that “having Pat Gelsinger coming back as CEO also helped me finalize my decision to come back,” showcasing the influence of Intel’s new CEO. 

Hinton worked for Intel for 35 years, and his return from retirement is a good sign for the company. Hinton says that he will be “working on an exciting high performance CPU project”, highlighting Intel’s refocus on engineering and a drive to deliver faster processors. Having already retired, Hinton return to Intel isn’t likely to be financially motivated. It is the draw of a new project that’s bringing Glenn back to Intel; having Pat Gelsinger return as CEO has only made that project more exciting. 

The development of new processors is a multi-year process, which means that Glenn Hinton will likely be a part of Intel for at least three years. Beyond that, the fruits of these projects are unlikely to be seen until at least 2024. While Hinton could impact projects that are currently in progress, a larger impact will be seen from a start-to-finish CPU project. For now, we can only guess at what Hinton will be working on, but it’s good to know that he is excited by the project. 

 

If it wasn’t a fun project I wouldn’t have come back. As you know, retirement is pretty darn nice. – Glenn Hinton

Over the past five years, Intel has been stuck on 14nm and has released refreshed versions of their Skylake architecture for five sequential product generations within the desktop market. Skylake, Kaby Lake, Coffee Lake-S, Coffee Lake-R and Comet Lake. While these architectures have seen changes to integrated graphics, their memory controllers and security mechanisms over the years, these architectures can still be considered Skylake at their core, a reality which makes the idea of new core designs an exciting one.  
  

Intel Rehires Retired CPU Architect for an   

Intel needs to change, and it now looks like the company is on the road to recovery. While Intel has remained financially successful, the CPU giant’s technology has stagnated. With an engineering-focused CEO at their helm, Intel will soon the leadership that’s needed to design and manufacture industry-leading processors. 

Over the past five years, Intel has learned a valuable lesson. They need a leader that can understand their products and everything that their engineering teams tell them. Without that kind of understanding, how can a technology company properly plan and execute their roadmap? Pat Gelsinger’s return to Intel has given the company’s engineers confidence, and that’s what Intel needs to get back on top. 

You can join the discussion on Intel rehiring a retired CPU architect for an “exciting high performance CPU Project” on the OC3D Forums.Â