Intel reveals major leadership changes following 7nm fallout

A lot has changed for Intel this week, with its share prices tumbling, in the aftermath of the company’s newly announced 7nm delays. The market’s faith in Intel has been shaken to the core, and leadership changes are needed to bring Intel back from this unfavourable position. 

Intel has confirmed that its Chief Engineering Officer and President of their Technology, Systems Architecture and Client Group (TSCG), Dr Venkata (Murthy) Renduchintala, will be leaving the company on August 3rd. Furthermore, the TSCG will be separated into five teams, all of which will report directly to CEO Bob Swan. 

The first of these new groups is Technology Development, which will be led by Dr. Ann Kelleher. This group will pioneer Intel’s work on its future 7nm and 5nm process technologies. Mike Mayberry, who was previously leading Technology Development, will consult and assist Kelleher until his retirement later this year. 

Raja Koduri, the former leader of AMD’s Radeon Technologies Group, will continue as the head of Intel’s Architecture, Software and Graphics group. Here, Raja will help drive Intel’s architecture and software roadmaps, while continuing to develop dedicated/discrete graphics products for the company. 

Manufacturing Operations will be lead by Keyvan Esfarjani, who recently led manufacturing for Intel’s Non-Volatile Memory Solutions Group (NSG). The role of this group will be to continue ramping new products and to increase new fab capacity for the company.

Josh Walden will lead Design Engineering, while Intel searches for a more permanent leader for this role. Walden will continue to lead Intel’s Product Assurance and Security Group (IPAS). As of now, Intel is searching for a “permanent world-class leader” to lead their Design Engineering group. 

Like before, Dr. Randhir Thakur will lead Intel’s Supply Chain group, reporting to Intel’s CEO as Chief Supply Chain Officer. As competition within the x86 market continues to intensify, the role of Intel’s supply chain will be more important than ever.      

The significance of these changes cannot be understated. A top-level executive has been forced our of Intel. Intel’s failure to develop its 7nm process tech on time has placed the company behind its competitors and following the company’s well-documented issues with 10nm, the blame for these issues had to go somewhere. 

While Intel’s announcement does not mention 7nm or mention Murphy’s departure aside from his leaving date, it is clear that today’s announcement is nothing short of Intel pushing out the executive in charge of the company’s current manufacturing woes. Now, Intel needs to find a new path to technological leadership, and for that Intel will likely need to go through more significant changes.