Organizational changes at Intel!

SANTA CLARA, USA: Intel announced a number of important organizational changes today and expansion of some key executive responsibilities.

The changes align the business around the core competencies of Intel Architecture and world class manufacturing, placing operating responsibility for them in three senior executives. In making the changes, Paul Otellini, Intel's chief executive, will devote a higher quotient of his time to corporate strategy and driving the company's growth initiatives.

First, Intel is consolidating all of its major product divisions into the newly formed Intel Architecture Group (IAG), which will be co-managed by Sean Maloney and Dadi Perlmutter, both executive vice presidents.

Maloney will be responsible for business and operations while Perlmutter will lead product development and architecture. Reporting to them will be all of Intel's components businesses based on the Intel architecture, as well as all the development and marketing teams needed to bring these products to market.

Second, Intel's global manufacturing organization, the Technology and Manufacturing Group (TMG), will now report to Andy Bryant, Intel's chief administrative officer and also an executive vice president.

The move formalizes the role of influence Bryant already plays with TMG and further increases Otellini's time on business strategy. The TMG organization under Bob Baker, Bill Holt and Brian Krzanich will report to Bryant but otherwise remain unchanged. Baker will continue to oversee Intel's NAND flash memory business.

In addition to micro-architecture planning, microprocessor and chipset development, SOC (system on a chip solutions) and wireless teams managed by Steve Pawlowski, Sunil Shenoy, Rony Friedman, Rob Crooke and Raviv Melamed respectively, there will be six business groups operating under the new IAG umbrella.

The first is the PC Client Group that will consolidate Intel's existing mobile and desktop product operations. As markets shift to a higher mix of mobile products, this new group will take advantage of common building blocks that have existed for years and enable Intel to better scale cross-platform efforts like security and manageability. The PC Client Group will be led by Mooly Eden.

The second is the Data Center Group, focused on servers, cloud computing, networking and high-performance computing. This group will be led by Kirk Skaugen.

The third is the Visual Computing Group, focused on advanced visualization products, and led by Jim Johnson.

The fourth is the Ultra Mobility Group, which will continue to be led by Anand Chandrasekher and will focus on extending the Intel architecture into mobile handheld devices.

The fifth is the Embedded and Communications Group, which Doug Davis will continue to lead.

The sixth is the Digital Home Group, still under Eric Kim, that is driving Intel chips into a variety of entertainment systems and consumer electronic applications.

In addition, with Maloney's move to IAG, Tom Kilroy will assume responsibility for Intel's Sales and Marketing Group (SMG). Kilroy was previously co-manager of processors for enterprise-class applications, the unit previously known as the Digital Enterprise Group (DEG). Kilroy will report to CEO Otellini.

Separately, Intel also announced today that Pat Gelsinger and Bruce Sewell have decided to leave the company to pursue other opportunities. Gelsinger co-managed DEG and Sewell served as Intel's general counsel. Suzan Miller, currently deputy general counsel, will take the role of interim general counsel.

"We thank Pat and Bruce for many years of service to Intel and wish them well in their future endeavors," said Otellini.

Intel showcases world's first Moorestown platform at IDF Taiwan

Intel showcased the world's first Moorestown platform at the recently held Intel Developer Forum in Taipei, Taiwan.

In his opening keynote on Day 1 at the IDF: Innovating a New Reality, Anand Chandrasekher, Senior Vice President, General Manager, Ultra Mobility Group, Intel Corp., said: "It is a world in transformation. There have been 3 billion new entrants in the global economy. The resilience of the global economy has been incredibly strong. The Internet has equalized the level-playing field."

He added how technology innovation and strong industry collaboration have driven the digital economy over the past 40 years, and the universal impact that the Internet and mobile Web has had in people's lives.

"Technology innovation is the catalyst for new user experiences, industry collaborations and business models that together will shape the next 40 years," said Chandrasekher. "As the next billion people connect to and experience the Internet, significant opportunities lie in the power of technology and the development of purpose-built devices that deliver more targeted computing needs and experiences."

Asia's growing might
Chandrasekher added: "IT is more important today, than it has ever been over the last 20 years. Asia has been playing a dramatic role." In fact, in 2007, Asia accounted for over 25 percent of Intel's revenue. "Look at the PC companies. ASUS, Acer, Lenovo, etc., are now in the top 10. The number of PCs in China exceeds the US's population. There are more handsets in Taiwan than the people in Taiwan," he highlighted. As for the Internet, Asia is now the fastest growing region online.

The foundation of the Internet is silicon, whose foundation is the Intel architecture (IA). Chandrasekher said: "It is the ecosystem for growth, tomorrow. If you don't have the tools to drive the Internet ecosystem, you have fallen behind." As a comparison, during 1971, the 4004 processor had 2,250 transistors. In 2008, the Core 2 Quad processor has 820 million transistors. It also consumes 93 percent less power. "Process is one piece of the foundation. Architecture is the other," he added.

Welcome Nehalem!
Chandrasekher next focused on the upcoming Nehalem microarchitecture, which, he said, has an extremely energy efficient design. "We have introduced the turbo mode and dynamic power management. We have hyper-threading technology as well." He pointed out that Intel has a 32nm version of the Nehalem, which should be out soon. "There has been a huge performance increase, almost 2X, with Nehalem."

According to him, developers love parallel programming and the Intel IA. "We are giving the Larabee. It increases the throughput performance and the programmability."

World's first working Moorestown platform
The event's showstopper: a live video from a Moorestown lab in Taiwan, which also demonstrated the world's first working Moorestown platform! The Moorestown platform is scheduled for 2009-2010 timeframe.

Moorestown comprises of an SoC, codenamed "Lincroft," which integrates the 45nm processor, graphics, memory controller and video encode/decode onto a single chip and an I/O hub codenamed "Langwell", which supports a range of I/O ports to connect with wireless, storage, and display components in addition to incorporating several board level functions.

Chandrasekher showed off a ''Moorestown'' wafer to the delegates.

In the next blog, I will introduce you to the Father of the Atom!