Intel Recruits Revered Skylake Architect Shlomit Weiss To Lead Client CPU Development
Industry veteran Shlomit Weiss is returning to Intel to lead the company's full range of chip development and design—the entire CPU silicon gamut, in other words. Weiss brings with her over three decades of experience in the semiconductor space, much of which was spent at Intel (28 years) before leaving for Mellanox Technologies, which was acquired by NVIDIA for $6.9 billion in 2019.
In a sense, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger is bringing the band back together, who himself returned to the Santa Clara outfit earlier this year to serve as its band leader, replacing former boss Bob Swan. Gelsinger had previously served various roles at Intel spanning 1979 to 1989, and was named the company's first chief technical officer in 2001.
Weiss will work from Israel alongside Sunil Shenoy, who also recently came back to Intel (to serve as head of the global engineering group) after having previously worked at the company for 33 years. In addition, Gelsinger previously brought back Glenn Hinton, the chief architecture of Nehalem who was in retirement when he got the call.
As for Weiss, she is a major addition to the team. Weiss led the development of Skylake, and before that, she won the Intel Achievement Award for developing Intel's dual-core CPU architecture.
"I am thrilled to return to the place that had been my home for 28 years, where I grew and developed professionally, as a manager and as a person," Weiss said in a statement. "I have been following Intel Corporation’s Pat Gelsinger, charting a new, bold strategy for the company, which I believe will accelerate the company’s leadership. I will devote my energy to ensuring Intel continues to lead in hardware and chips."
Weiss is the latest in a line of previous high-ranking officials who have been lured back by Gelsinger, in an effort to restore Intel to its former glory days. In recent years, AMD in some ways has caught up to and surpassed Intel, just not necessarily in market share. Gelsinger was brought back to flip back the script, and the re-hiring of Weiss figures to be a major part of that effort. She is another Intel and industry vet with an impressive and proven track record in chip design.
During a phone interview with The Times of Israel, Weiss acknowledged the persistent competition, not just from AMD, but also companies like TSCM.
"Everything is changing in the world and moving faster, and Intel is also looking at how to be more efficient, how to move faster and how to invent technologies faster. Everyone wants to be first to market," Weiss said.
Intel has a lot of talented people on board. Now the challenge is to execute on its bold goals, which previously had been hampered by chip delays and other factors. It will take some time for the moves to pay off, though bringing back Weiss combined with massive investments Intel is making to expand its chip manufacturing capabilities, its turnaround effort appears to be on the right track.
Top Image Source: Jonathan Bloom via NVIDIA
