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AMD today announced the return of Jim Keller, who has spent the past four years as a director in the platform architecture group at Apple after joining the company as part of the 2008 acquisition of P.A. Semi.

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Keller, who previously was a key contributor to AMD's Athlon 64 and Opteron 64 projects before moving on to positions at other companies, will be returning to the company as corporate vice president and chief architect of AMD's microprocessor cores. Keller will report to AMD chief technology officer Mark Papermaster, who spent a brief time heading up Apple's iPhone and iPod engineering teams.
"Jim is one of the most widely respected and sought-after innovators in the industry and a very strong addition to our engineering team," said Papermaster. "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."

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 firm specializing in low-power mobile processors that was acquired by Apple in 2008. While there, he led the team responsible for building a powerful networking SoC and its integrated PowerPC processor.
Keller's hiring is being seen as a major victory for AMD, which has been suffering from the loss of a number of executives in recent months. Apple of course has a significant team of designers and engineers working on its chip projects as it seeks to advance its Ax series of ARM-based chips that have become the heart of its iOS devices, but Keller has undoubtedly been a key figure in that effort.

Article Link: Key Apple Chip Designer Jim Keller Returns to AMD
 

ixodes

macrumors 601
Jan 11, 2012
4,429
3
Pacific Coast, USA
I hate to see good talent leave Apple.

Yet that said, it's what happens behinds the scenes in the workplace that we will never know about.
 

Codyak

macrumors 6502
Apr 6, 2012
370
127
DC
Bought two 6950's and was pretty happy with them. I just haven't had a reason in age's to buy an AMD CPU, SB i7@4.8 for $250 is pretty dam nice price/performance ratio. More competition is always a good thing though.
 
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Mad-B-One

macrumors 6502a
Jun 24, 2011
789
5
San Antonio, Texas
x64 and AMD

Since the x64 achitecture comes from AMD, I would love to see them getting a breakthrough on their new 8 core processors (essentially, work out the kinks and get the speed) and then I would be extatic to see them inside an Apple computer. I would finally have a hackintosh! :D I have a X990 chipset main board with AM3+ and as long as this stands as the socket needed, I can easily upgrade the CPU to the next version.

Please, Apple, opt in for AMD. :)
 

CausticPuppy

macrumors 68000
May 1, 2012
1,536
70
I hate to see good talent leave Apple.

Yet that said, it's what happens behinds the scenes in the workplace that we will never know about.

Keep in mind that Apple didn't hire him... they bought his company. Now he's returning "home."
 

Macman45

macrumors G5
Jul 29, 2011
13,197
135
Somewhere Back In The Long Ago
I think we are going to see continuing AMD development but not for Apple's Macs....IOS devices, on the other and will benefit from AMD in the futire I'm sure...I can't see Apple moving away from the Intel platform in it's range of OSX computers though...It's the R&D curve which is planning in action years in advance of what we can buy now.

I hope AMD do make a recovery though....I built many a machine with the early stuff, and it offered excellent value for money. Kellier's return to the company can only be a good thing, and as pointed out above AMD need him way more than Apple do at the moment.
 

Codyak

macrumors 6502
Apr 6, 2012
370
127
DC
I think we are going to see continuing AMD development but not for Apple's Macs....IOS devices, on the other and will benefit from AMD in the futire I'm sure...I can't see Apple moving away from the Intel platform in it's range of OSX computers though...It's the R&D curve which is planning in action years in advance of what we can buy now.

I hope AMD do make a recovery though....I built many a machine with the early stuff, and it offered excellent value for money. Kellier's return to the company can only be a good thing, and as pointed out above AMD need him way more than Apple do at the moment.

I'm in the same boat, I owned almost all AMD until Wolfdale came out with Intel, AMD needs to get back in the game.
 

Mad-B-One

macrumors 6502a
Jun 24, 2011
789
5
San Antonio, Texas
I hope AMD do make a recovery though....I built many a machine with the early stuff, and it offered excellent value for money. Kellier's return to the company can only be a good thing, and as pointed out above AMD need him way more than Apple do at the moment.

I so hoe that. I had one of the early upright AMD K7 600MHz. That thing was the bomb! The Phenom II 1100T (which I have) isn't that bad either. The last processor, AMD really messed up. How can a next-gen Octocore be significantly slower than my Hexacore? How can a true Octocore be slower than a HT Quadcore which has to handle the same amount of threads on only half the physical cores? Then the debacle with their APU (CPU+GPU)... AMD really has to get their act together.

Apple recently hired AMD chip architect John Bruno, so they traded more than anything.

Maybe that swap will help it along. AMD has great innovations, so does Apple. I know there are a lot of deals behind the scenes and that Apple runs on Intel right now is an absolutely understandable reasoning: iMacs & Co. are high end customer machines and should have the best performace available on the market. That is currently not AMD. Bang for the buck though, AMD has its value.
 

pmz

macrumors 68000
Nov 18, 2009
1,949
0
NJ
Good. I'd like to see AMD compete. Intel got so far out ahead that they've gotten lax.
 

darkplanets

macrumors 6502a
Nov 6, 2009
853
1
A director is only as good as those below him, and praise for success usually goes to the ones up top. Sometimes upper management forgets that the "grunts" are the ones that actually get things done (and in my experience often have the ideas, which get credited to higher management). I'm unsure as to how much actual scientific input he had in his past and current roles, but if I had to bet, he was probably more managerial than idea prolific. That's typically the case in places like pharma. That's not an issue either really, but it certainly doesn't mean the sky is falling over at Apple.
 

nt5672

macrumors 68040
Jun 30, 2007
3,723
8,136
Midwest USA
A director is only as good as those below him, and praise for success usually goes to the ones up top. Sometimes upper management forgets that the "grunts" are the ones that actually get things done (and in my experience often have the ideas, which get credited to higher management).

While true, it usually applies to not so good managers. Good managers know how to keep the good ideas coming, bring the best out of people, and bad managers just steal the credit. A good manager working well with average people can usually outperform a bad manager with suppressed and angry geniuses.

I have no idea what applies here, but wanted to present the other side.
 

jayducharme

macrumors 601
Jun 22, 2006
4,640
6,368
The thick of it
It's interesting that AMD now has both Papermaster and Keller. Apple's brain trust seems to be spreading out lately. But I wonder what that will amount to in other companies without the Jobs/Ives sense of aesthetics and polish.
 

nuckinfutz

macrumors 603
Jul 3, 2002
5,542
406
Middle Earth
A director is only as good as those below him, and praise for success usually goes to the ones up top. Sometimes upper management forgets that the "grunts" are the ones that actually get things done (and in my experience often have the ideas, which get credited to higher management). I'm unsure as to how much actual scientific input he had in his past and current roles, but if I had to bet, he was probably more managerial than idea prolific. That's typically the case in places like pharma. That's not an issue either really, but it certainly doesn't mean the sky is falling over at Apple.

This

I've witnessed first hand how the grunts do most the work and get the least credit. Look at ex Apple employees that have left with fanfare for other opportunities. Apple keeps chugging forward but i've seen few ex Apple employees move on to greater success.
 

Mad-B-One

macrumors 6502a
Jun 24, 2011
789
5
San Antonio, Texas
I don't think the FX 8150 have 8 physical cores. So that might be why its a lot slower.

Yes they do. Hence the "8" in FX 8150. The names are put together as "FX" for the chip design, then the number of cores, the revision, and the last 2 are the speed rating. I just hope the FX 8350 (Piledriver) with the revised core does perform as promised.
 

The13thDoctor

macrumors regular
Mar 12, 2010
189
0
@TheRoyalDoctor
Yes they do. Hence the "8" in FX 8150. The names are put together as "FX" for the chip design, then the number of cores, the revision, and the last 2 are the speed rating. I just hope the FX 8350 (Piledriver) with the revised core does perform as promised.

Ummm...get your facts straight. The FX 8150 has 4 physical cores with another 4 logical cores.

Edit: Never mind, I stand corrected.
 

takezo808

macrumors member
Aug 7, 2011
98
0
I hate to see good talent leave Apple.

Yet that said, it's what happens behinds the scenes in the workplace that we will never know about.

Directors cracks the whip, the subordinates actualy create the design, director gets 100% credit.
 
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