AMD poaches Apple's platform architecture lead to head up CPU team
We suppose after a reasonably high-profile defection of one of AMD's own to Apple, the Sunnyvale company had to exact revenge. That payback was announced today in the form of Jim Keller, the now former platform architecture head in Cupertino, who will be joining AMD as corporate vice president and chief architect of its microprocessor unit. In a statement, the company said that Keller will be leveraging his "low-power design expertise," possibly as part of its oft-rumored ARM plans. Keller previously worked as VP of design at P.A. Semi before being brought into the Apple fold where he played an important role in the development of the processors inside the iPad, iPhone and Apple TV. With AMD struggling to keep pace with Intel in both the desktop and laptop space, a move into low-powered mobile chips could be a plan to stave off more dire days. Check out the PR after the break.
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Computer Architect Jim Keller Joins AMD as Chief of Processor Group
Industry Veteran Architected Several Generations of Popular Apple, Broadcom and AMD Processors
SUNNYVALE, CA--(Marketwire - Aug 1, 2012) - AMD (NYSE: AMD) announced today that Jim Keller, 53, has joined the company as corporate vice president and chief architect of AMD's microprocessor cores, reporting to chief technology officer and senior vice president of technology and engineering Mark Papermaster. In this role, Keller will lead AMD's microprocessor core design efforts aligned with AMD's ambidextrous strategy with a focus on developing both high-performance and low-power processor cores that will be the foundation of AMD's future products.
"Jim is one of the most widely respected and sought-after innovators in the industry and a very strong addition to our engineering team," said Papermaster. "He has contributed to processing innovations that have delivered tremendous compute advances for millions of people all over the world, and we expect that his innovative spirit, low-power design expertise, creativity and drive for success will help us shape our future and fuel our growth."
Keller was most recently a director in the platform architecture group at Apple focusing on mobile products, where he architected several generations of mobile processors, including the chip families found in millions of Apple iPads, iPhones, iPods and Apple TVs. Prior to Apple, Keller was vice president of design for P.A. Semi, a fabless semiconductor design firm specializing in low-power mobile processors that was acquired by Apple in 2008. While there, he led the team responsible for building a powerful networking System on a Chip (SoC) and its integrated PowerPC processor. Keller previously worked at SiByte® and Broadcom as chief architect for a line of scalable, MIPS-based network processors that supported 1Gig networking interfaces, PCI and other control functions. Before Broadcom, he spent several years at AMD, playing an instrumental role on the design team responsible for the groundbreaking AMD Athlon™ 64 and AMD Opteron™ 64 processors, which featured the world's first native x86-64 bit architecture.
Keller co-authored the widely adopted HyperTransport specification, as well as the innovative x86-64 processor instruction set, which is used around the world today in hundreds of millions of desktop, notebook and server systems. Jim was a corporate consulting engineer at DEC, and architected two generations of Alpha processors during his tenure there. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from Penn State University.
About AMD
AMD (NYSE: AMD) is a semiconductor design innovator leading the next era of vivid digital experiences with its groundbreaking AMD Accelerated Processing Units (APUs) that power a wide range of computing devices. AMD's server computing products are focused on driving industry-leading cloud computing and virtualization environments. AMD's superior graphics technologies are found in a variety of solutions ranging from game consoles, PCs to supercomputers. For more information, visit http://www.amd.com.
