Why it matters: Keller is a veteran microprocessor engineer with decades of experience. Following an early stint at Digital Equipment Corporation, he stepped up to the big leagues, taking a job with AMD in 1998 that saw him work on the launch of the Athlon (AMD K7) processor and as the lead architect on Athlon 64 (AMD K8). Later he'd join Apple to work on the A4 and A5 mobile chips used in the iPhone 4/S, at Tesla's autopilot hardware engineering, and return to AMD for a few years to work on the Zen microarchitecture.

Intel has announced that effective immediately, Jim Keller has resigned from his position with the company. He has, however, agreed to serve as a consultant for a period of six months to help assist Intel as it transitions to new leadership.

After leaving AMD in 1999, he worked with a number of notable companies including P.A. Semi, Broadcom and Apple where he helped design the Apple A4 and A5 mobile processors. He returned to AMD in 2012 and stuck around until late 2015 to pursue other opportunities.

Following a brief stop at Tesla, he found his way to Intel in April 2018 which he has called home ever since. Intel said he was resigning due to unspecified personal reasons.

The company outlined the following leadership changes that are being made as a result of his departure, all of which are effective immediately:

  • Sundari Mitra, the former CEO and founder of NetSpeed Systems and the current leader of Intel's Configurable Intellectual Property and Chassis Group, will lead a newly created IP Engineering Group focused on developing best-in-class IP.
  • Gene Scuteri, an accomplished engineering leader in the semiconductor industry, will head the Xeon and Networking Engineering Group.
  • Daaman Hejmadi will return to leading the Client Engineering Group focused on system-on-chip (SoC) execution and designing next-generation client, device and chipset products. Hejmadi has over two decades of experience leading teams delivering advanced SoCs both inside and outside of Intel.
  • Navid Shahriari, an experienced Intel leader, will continue to lead the Manufacturing and Product Engineering Group, which is focused on delivering comprehensive pre-production test suites and component debug capabilities to enable high-quality, high-volume manufacturing.

Images courtesy Intel, JHVEPhoto