Apple's chip architect returns to AMD

CALIFORNIA, USA: Apple’s CPU architect, Jim Keller, 53, has joined AMD as corporate vice president and chief architect of AMD’s microprocessor cores. 

Keller who had his first stint at AMD in 1998 has finally returned to the company after having served various roles in different companies like Apple and Broadcom. 

Keller will now lead AMD’s microprocessor core design efforts aligned with AMD’s ambidextrous strategy with a focus on developing both high-performance and low-power processor cores that will be the foundation of AMD’s future products. He will report to Mark Papermaster, chief technology officer and senior vice president of technology and engineering.

“Jim is one of the most widely respected and sought-after innovators in the industry and a very strong addition to our engineering team. He has contributed to processing innovations that have delivered tremendous compute advances for millions of people all over the world, and we expect that his innovative spirit, low-power design expertise, creativity and drive for success will help us shape our future and fuel our growth,” said Papermaster.

Keller was most recently a director in the platform architecture group at Apple focusing on mobile products, where he architected several generations of mobile processors, including the chip families found in millions of Apple iPads, iPhones, iPods and Apple TVs.

Prior to Apple, Keller was vice president of design for P.A. Semi, a fabless semiconductor design firms pecializing in low-power mobile processors that was acquired by Apple in 2008. During his stint with Apple, he led the team responsible for building a powerful networking SoC and its integrated Power PC processor. 

Keller previously worked at SiByte and Broadcom as chief architect for a line of scalable, MIPS-based network processors that supported 1Gig networking interfaces, PCI and other control functions. Before Broadcom, he spent several years at AMD, playing an instrumental role on the design team responsible for the groundbreaking AMD Athlon 64 and AMD Opteron 64 processors, which featured the world’s first native x86-64 bit architecture.