AMD Hires Away Key Intel Developer

Press reports indicate that AMD has hired away one of the leading designers of the Itanium processor, along with eight of his colleagues, from competitor Intel. Samuel Naffziger had only been with the company for less than a year, having been hired away previously from Hewlett Packard in 2005.

AMD confirmed the move Wednesday and said Naffziger would work on chip design as a senior fellow. However, the company would not elaborate on the work he or his counterparts would be doing. While Intel has downplayed the loss, Naffziger played a key part in several chip launches, including the McKinley and Montecito processors.

According to Real World Technologies, Naffziger joined AMD in either late February or early March and would assist AMD in opening a design center in Fort Collins. The small Colorado city is also where Intel does much of its Itanium design work.

It is likely that the work Naffziger will be tasked with has something to do with two new multi-core processors, one for mobile products and another for servers. The Fort Collins office will initially employ 30 individuals, however that number could be expanded to 200 if there is enough interest, the site reports.

The site also speculated that much of the work in Fort Collins would concentrate on server chips, as most of the engineers in the area have worked on either the PA-RISC or Itanium chips.