Top AMD Exec Jim Anderson Departs As 7nm Chips Forge Ahead
AMD client computing boss Jim Anderson has departed the company to become CEO of Lattice Semiconductor, the two companies announced Monday.
Anderson was senior vice president and general manager of AMD's Computing and Graphics Business Group, where he was responsible for the company's client computing products and solutions, which includes AMD's Ryzen CPUs and Radeon graphics cards.
“Jim is a tremendous talent that pulled everything together during this explosive time at AMD, and I'm not surprised he's reaching for the next rung in his ladder,” said Randy Copeland, CEO of Velocity Micro, a Richmond, Va.-based AMD partner, in an email. “Fortunately, there is a deep bench behind him that will step in and take over without missing a step.”
The departure comes as AMD makes progress with its 7-nanometer manufacturing process for next-generation chips, which is expected to make the company more competitive with Intel next year in the face of multiple delays for its 10nm chips. The company's 7nm EPYC server CPU is due next year, with a 7nm Ryzen client CPU to follow sometime after that.
"We knew 7nm would be a big challenge, so we made the bet, we shifted our resources onto the new node," AMD CTO Mark Papermaster said earlier this month in an exclusive interview with CRN. "We didn't just dip our toe in the water. We went all in."
Anderson's departure was noted in an update sent by AMD that largely focused on the company's decision to use semiconductor foundry TSMC for 7nm products and not GlobalFoundries, which will now focus on existing products.
The Santa Clara, Calif.-based company said it promoted Saeid Moshkelani, general manager of AMD's Client Computer Group, from corporate vice president to senior vice president. With Anderson's departure, AMD said Moshkelani and senior executive Darren Grasby will now report directly to CEO Lisa Su.
“We see significant opportunities to continue gaining share and accelerate our growth in the client processor market based on the strength of our premium AMD Ryzen product portfolio and our long-term roadmaps," Su said in a statement.
"Saeid and Darren are the right leaders to combine our product leadership with strong and strategic customer relationships as we enter our next phase of growth in the client PC market," Su continued. "I am grateful to Jim for his many contributions to AMD and wish him the very best as he begins a new chapter in his career."
Anderson joined AMD in May 2015 after working at Intel for seven months, according to his LinkedIn profile. He had joined Intel in November 2014 through the company's acquisition of the Axxia business from Avago Technologies, where he had worked for seven months after the company acquired his previous employer, LSI Corp.
Lattice Semiconductor is a publicly traded company that makes "smart connectivity solutions at the network edge," according to the company. This includes its low-power, reprogrammable FPGAs (field-programmable gate arrays) and video ASSP products, which are used for a variety of edge applications across industrial, consumer, automotive and other markets.