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Gadgets AMD Hires New Engineers with Apple, QUALCOMM Experience
Shane McGlaun (Blog) - January 22, 2013 8:12 AM

11 comment(s) - last by mi1400.. on Jan 23 at 11:50 AM

AMD readies a push into the mobile market with new engineers

AMD has hired a pair of new senior engineers that have experience gained from working with Apple and QUALCOMM. Reuters reports that the hires are a sign that AMD is diversifying beyond the computer industry and into the hot mobile sector.

The new engineers are Charles Matar and Wayne Meretsky. Matar brings expertise in low power and embedded chip design to AMD. Matar joins AMD as vice president of system-on-chip development. Meretsky worked at Apple on the A-Series processors used in the company's iPad and iPhone. He was named vice president of software IP development according to the sources and lead software development for AMD processors.

Interestingly, both Matar and Meretsky worked at AMD early in their careers.

AMD spokesman Drew Prairie confirmed that AMD had hired the engineers to help the company expand into new markets. Currently AMD depends primarily on the computer industry, but with the computer industry in decline, smartphones, and tablets on the rise AMD is certainly looking to expand into markets with more growth potential.

AMD currently gets about 80% of its revenue from the PC industry. However, the company has a goal of expanding its reach in markets such as communications, micro servers, digital signs, and thin client computers. The company wants to earn 50% of its revenue from those categories within 3 to 4 years.

AMD announced in October of 2012 that it would be laying off 15% of its global workforce. That round of layoffs was the second significant round of job cuts within a year.

Source: Reuters

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Good for AMD

By menting on 1/22/2013 10:23:59 AM , Rating: 2

Good for them. I hope they come back in full force. The market is always better when there is more competition.

RE: Good for AMD

By Jeffk464 on 1/22/2013 11:09:04 AM , Rating: 4

It always sounds more promising when a company is hiring engineers rather than laying them off. Things haven't been sounding very good for AMD recently maybe this is a good sign.

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RE: Good for AMD

By GulWestfale on 1/22/2013 12:20:22 PM , Rating: 4

thousands of layoffs, but two new employees is a good sign? lol

i think these might not only be hired for mobile designs, but also to work on the next-gen console chips, which can not have AMD's typical 125W TDP.

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RE: Good for AMD

By Amoro on 1/22/2013 1:15:35 PM , Rating: 2

Not sure what you mean by "typical" 125W. Half of their new FX CPU's are 125W, sure. But their APU's max out at 100W which is what I predict will be used in the new consoles. However, if they use the mobile versions of these chips they will top out at 35W for current gen and 45 for last gen.

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RE: Good for AMD

By Cloudie on 1/22/2013 1:44:51 PM , Rating: 2

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/df-hardware-orbi...

The next gen consoles are using 8 Jaguar cores (successor to Brazos) and a GCN Pitcairn GPU. Not using Trinity or its successor.

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RE: Good for AMD

By Cheesew1z69 on 1/22/2013 1:49:06 PM , Rating: 1

quote:
The next gen consoles are rumored to be using 8 Jaguar cores (successor to Brazos) and a GCN Pitcairn GPU. Not using Trinity or its successor.

FTFY

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RE: Good for AMD

By mi1400 on 1/23/2013 11:50:11 AM , Rating: 2

I am die hard AMD fan ,... but since 5-7 years its becoming more convincing that AMD is kinda of politically supressed by organizations i.e. U.S and other half.

1. AMD is not disclosing points of its slavery pact with Intel.
2. AMD's "Megahertzgovinia" type stunts
3. AMD's "petitions" inciting people for a duel aginst intel

If Intel can dig in SSDs making why cant AMD jump into same too or gear up existing RAM biz or jump into super fine Camera Sensors. AMD can release Laptops with removeable CPU enthusiast series no matter without warranty and with warnings...
summary is AMD is walking behind Intel head bowed like a slave... If Intel launches some UltraBook .. amd starts making a what slave should make versions of ultrabook... there is something darn fishy going on in AMD ,...

Also AMD does not require EX Apple, Qualcomm guys they need to just...
1. get out of slavery mindset
2. remove gap between release of desktop deneration and its mobile gen then mobile FireGLs

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Look out Intel.

By mugiebahar on 1/22/2013 7:14:22 PM , Rating: 2

To be honest if the trends continue, AMD could be stronger then Intel for the fact they are nimble and acknowledged the fact computers are evolving. And since they don't have foundry to keep busy they appear leaner the Intel will be in 2 years. But that's only on the conditions

1st - AMD executes well (if not perfect)
2nd - industry pushes in the smart phone/tablet sector continues for a longer then expected duration
3rd - Intel stays cocky and doesn't shake up those stiff minds @ the top
4th - Intel could always resort to being a foundry for other companies.
5th - ARM could close the gap "enough" (not completely) to basically convince that the price premium is not worth the x86 continued investment. As programs like Office will be ported over soon for ARM on IOS and in on already
6th - Developers are making more money (not Adobe but small but numerous) off apps. That in itself pulls development away from General PC's.
7th - AMD with fusion and open compute, complex CPU's are becoming a less have for many applications and its only going to get better as more programs are written for that area.

So good on AMD, I've always supported you when I could @ every opportunity. I hope you can get it done as your products if you get the necessary improvements are better suited for the mobile future.

RE: Look out Intel.

By Jeffk464 on 1/23/2013 12:05:08 AM , Rating: 2

I agree on ARM chips reaching a point where they handle productivity without lagging. Now that Windows and MS office run on ARM, ARM chips might start showing up in the workplace. Samsungs arm A15 chromebook has basically already proven that the new chips can handle productivity.

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RE: Look out Intel.

By Reclaimer77 on 1/23/2013 11:29:33 AM , Rating: 1

http://ces.cnet.com/8301-34435_1-57562567/intel-ge...

Look out Intel? AMD isn't even a speed-bump for Intel anymore. AMD has it's sights set for ARM. Very exciting times ahead in mobile computing!

Not sure where you see Intel being "cocky" and stale. When I see a company pouring billions into R&D; and building new foundries, coming out with 7 watt x86 chips...well that's not exactly how I would describe it.

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Wayne

By name99 on 1/22/2013 1:53:07 PM , Rating: 3

Hmm. To say that Wayne Meretsky has "Apple experience" is true but grossly misleading.
Wayne was the driving force behind Copland, the OS/2 of Apple's history, Apple's attempt to come up with a modern OS internally during the dark days before Steve returned. From what I saw and read of Copland (which was inside Apple, so more than most of the world) it was not a disaster, but also nothing special --- no reason to choose it over UNIX, and it was constantly delayed, I assume because writing a new real OS from scratch is simply not that easy. Wayne left about the time Steve returned.

So yes, experience in the old, not especially successful Apple, not in the slim and hungry new Apple.

Given Wayne's history since then, I don't know. He comes across as one of these people whose primary skill is selling himself, not actually doing anything, and so has managed to fall upward from one job to the next.
(Compare with the previous article on the management style of Steve Ballmer.)