Jim Keller leaves Tesla to join Intel

[WYP]

Intel is harvesting all of AMD's former talent.




Thanks to TheF34RChannel for the info.

Read more about Jim Keller's move from Tesla to Intel.

 

[AlienALX]

lmfao. That's absolutely hilarious. Imitation, and all that....

 

[WYP]

lmfao. That's absolutely hilarious. Imitation, and all that....

Not really, the way I see it Intel has had to swallow a lot of pride to hire external talent for their CPU division.

If Intel wants to innovate, the best thing they can do is buy one of the best minds in the business to jump-start their efforts.

If you want to think about it this way, it is better for the PC market for Keller to be working at Intel. His design effort's don't help x86 at Tesla.

 

[AlienALX]

Not really, the way I see it Intel has had to swallow a lot of pride to hire external talent for their CPU division.

If Intel wants to innovate, the best thing they can do is buy one of the best minds in the business to jump-start their efforts.

If you want to think about it this way, it is better for the PC market for Keller to be working at Intel. His design effort's don't help x86 at Tesla.

Oh for sure. TBH I would buy anything with a Keller badge on it, simply because he's a genius.

Do you know what I think triggered this? the difficulty Intel are having shrinking. I think that is down to their tech, and when they saw how fast AMD managed it that was the clincher.

And let's face it, Intel don't exactly have form when it comes to making great CPU tech. Netburst was an all out failure, and the company name was what kept them in business (and backhanders and bribes) and then they go back to the Pentium Pro for their next gen tech because it was that bad that literally nothing about it was worth using. AMD were spanking them before the P4 came along though, with their Athlon slot CPUs. And it continued for years.

Plus Meltdown and Spectre, eh? so it's hardly like Sandy and on were bomb proof either.

Either way whatever transpires I am happy to see this though. Very happy. Like you so rightly say, he's better off doing what he's best at rather than bumming around wasting time. I like how the guy moves too. He's very much a free spirit, meaning *everyone* can get the benefits of his huge talents.

 

[WYP]

Oh for sure. TBH I would buy anything with a Keller badge on it, simply because he's a genius.

Do you know what I think triggered this? the difficulty Intel are having shrinking. I think that is down to their tech, and when they saw how fast AMD managed it that was the clincher.

And let's face it, Intel don't exactly have form when it comes to making great CPU tech. Netburst was an all out failure, and the company name was what kept them in business (and backhanders and bribes) and then they go back to the Pentium Pro for their next gen tech because it was that bad that literally nothing about it was worth using. AMD were spanking them before the P4 came along though, with their Athlon slot CPUs. And it continued for years.

Plus Meltdown and Spectre, eh? so it's hardly like Sandy and on were bomb proof either.

Either way whatever transpires I am happy to see this though. Very happy. Like you so rightly say, he's better off doing what he's best at rather than bumming around wasting time. I like how the guy moves too. He's very much a free spirit, meaning *everyone* can get the benefits of his huge talents.

I wouldn't say that Keller was wasting his time at Tesla, self-driving tech is important. I'm just saying that it serves the PC market better to have the guy working with x86 CPUs.

As I said in the article, Intel cannot rely on process node advantages to maintain their leadership anymore. 10nm is super late, forcing Intel to pretty much release Skylake three times on mainstream desktop.

We have had four generations on 14nm now, Broadwell, Skylake, Kaby Lake and Coffee Lake. I imagine that Intel CPU teams now regret not backporting some of their 10nm chips to 14nm, as the delays in 10nm production are now ridiculous.

 

[TheF34RChannel]

I also suspect that Intel has something up its sleeve, something they held back that now needs to emerge in light of the Ryzen successes.
And indeed going forward they'll want someone like Keller who can deliver some true innovations surely.

 

[WYP]

I also suspect that Intel has something up its sleeve, something they held back that now needs to emerge in light of the Ryzen successes.
And indeed going forward they'll want someone like Keller who can deliver some true innovations surely.

The problem with Intel is that their future architectures are designed for 10nm, which has been delayed time and time again. Cannonlake should be here by now.

Intel didn't expect to be using 14nm past Kaby Lake, which is why they announced their PAO (Process, Architecture, Optimisation) thing a while back to replace tick-tock. It is Intel's manufacturing division that is slowing the whole company down.

 

[TheF34RChannel]

The problem with Intel is that their future architectures are designed for 10nm, which has been delayed time and time again. Cannonlake should be here by now.

Intel didn't expect to be using 14nm past Kaby Lake, which is why they announced their PAO (Process, Architecture, Optimisation) thing a while back to replace tick-tock. It is Intel's manufacturing division that is slowing the whole company down.

My guess is that CNL will exist only in very few mobile numbers instead of a wide range (desktop was already out as we know) and then it's ICL. But yeah, they made some miscalculations on 10nm.

Still, they must have something under wraps in case Ryzen were good - which it turned out to be luckily. Regardless of the node - I'm thinking more on the architecture level itself.

And surely they want Keller for future advancements as they can't keep this lackluster ways up.

 

[TheF34RChannel]

Update from Intel:

SANTA CLARA, Calif., April 26, 2018 – Intel today announced that Jim Keller will join Intel as a senior vice president. He will lead the company’s silicon engineering, which encompasses system-on-chip (SoC) development and integration.
“Jim is one of the most respected microarchitecture design visionaries in the industry, and the latest example of top technical talent to join Intel,” said Dr. Murthy Renduchintala, Intel’s chief engineering officer and group president of the Technology, Systems Architecture & Client Group (TSCG). “We have embarked on exciting initiatives to fundamentally change the way we build the silicon as we enter the world of heterogeneous process and architectures. Jim joining us will help accelerate this transformation.”

Keller brings to Intel more than 20 years of experience in x86 and ARM-based microarchitecture design across a broad range of platforms, including PCs, servers, mobile devices and cars.

“I had a great experience working at Tesla, learned a lot, and look forward to all the great technology coming from Tesla in the future. My lifelong passion has been developing the world’s best silicon products,” Keller said. “The world will be a very different place in the next decade as a result of where computing is headed. I am excited to join the Intel team to build the future of CPUs, GPUs, accelerators and other products for the data-centric computing era.”

Keller, 59, joins Intel from Tesla, where he most recently served as vice president of Autopilot and Low Voltage Hardware. Prior to Tesla, he served as corporate vice president and chief cores architect at AMD, where he led the development of the Zen* architecture. Previously, Keller was vice president of Engineering and chief architect at P.A. Semi, which was acquired by Apple Inc. in 2008. He led Apple’s custom low-power mobile chip efforts with the original A4 processor that powered the iPhone 4*, as well as the subsequent A5 processor.

He will officially start in his new role at Intel on April 30.

https://newsroom.intel.com/news-releases/jim-keller-joins-intel-lead-silicon-engineering/

 

[TheF34RChannel]

I wonder though how much, if any, influence he has over the desktop and server CPUs seeing as how he'll oversee SoCs.

 

[BigDaddyKong]

We probably won't see any of his work for at least 4 to 5 years before it's released.

I was thinking about one thing. Jim has bounced around between several companies over the years creating new products that revolutionize and save companies. There are maybe a handful of people like this in the industry. What's going to happen with they retire or die off. We have seen how Intel's progress ground to a halt, and AMD was pretty slow over the years as well. To coin a phrase from one of my favorite country songs, who's going to fill their shoes.

 

[g0ggles1994]

We probably won't see any of his work for at least 4 to 5 years before it's released.

I was thinking about one thing. Jim has bounced around between several companies over the years creating new products that revolutionize and save companies. There are maybe a handful of people like this in the industry. What's going to happen with they retire or die off. We have seen how Intel's progress ground to a halt, and AMD was pretty slow over the years as well. To coin a phrase from one of my favorite country songs, who's going to fill their shoes.

I'd say there's plenty of people out there who can carry on their work but the progress halting is purely down to money. Intel's progress ground to a halt because they knew they could and make billions regardless. AMD's progress ground to a halt because they had no money to be able to get any decent talent in to do anything until they got the management who had the balls to say "we'll risk total bankruptcy to create something new" (I honestly think that's what Lisa Su said about greenlighting Zen's development and rehiring Jim since they didn't have many resources before hand)

Progress these days isn't controlled by innovators, but the bean counters and Wall Street brokers. It's why I wish the Cold War never ended.

 

[TheF34RChannel]

We probably won't see any of his work for at least 4 to 5 years before it's released.

I was thinking about one thing. Jim has bounced around between several companies over the years creating new products that revolutionize and save companies. There are maybe a handful of people like this in the industry. What's going to happen with they retire or die off. We have seen how Intel's progress ground to a halt, and AMD was pretty slow over the years as well. To coin a phrase from one of my favorite country songs, who's going to fill their shoes.

There are likely more people who can do and are doing it; we may simply not have seen their names in the foreground yet.