AMD shuffles executives, creates central engineering group

by Sumner Lemon

May 13, 2008 —

Advanced Micro Devices announced
a series of executive changes Monday, including the creation of a Central Engineering
Organization to oversee the company's product roadmap.

Leading the new executive appointments was the announcement that Randy Allen
will replace Mario Rivas as head of the company's Computing Solutions Group.
Rivas, who was an executive vice president, is leaving the company "to
pursue new opportunities," the company said.

Prior to his latest appointment, Allen was responsible for AMD's server and
workstation business. He will now report directly to Dirk Meyer, AMD's president
and chief operating officer.

Another key appointment is the hiring of Chekib Akrout, formerly vice president
of design technology at Freescale Semiconductor, to co-head the newly created
Central Engineering Organization with Jeff VerHeul, AMD's corporate vice president
of design engineering. This new group will report to Meyer and will oversee
the development and direction of AMD's technology and product roadmaps.

Prior to Freescale, Akrout worked at IBM where "he was responsible for
IBM's work on the development of the Cell processor, the Xbox 360 processor
for Microsoft, and embedded PowerPC cores," AMD said.

IDG News Service