Will new blood bring life back to AMD?

AMD has gotten itself a transfusion of sorts, promoting execs and hiring an outsider, as it reorganizes its engineering core.

The MPU maker after Monday’s closing bell announced that Mario Rivas, formerly executive VP of the computing solutions group, has resigned to “pursue other opportunities.” Rivas, one of the execs who in December stood before analysts apologizing for the company’s Barcelona design botch,  follows former AMD CTO Phil Hester out the door. Hester exited AMD in April, right after the company announced a 10% layoff.

CEO Hector Ruiz hinted at executive changes last week during the company’s annual meeting of stockholders when he told the community to “expect to see new blood, increased focus, experienced leadership, and stronger execution” as AMD in 2008 moves to “continuing profitability … through good times and bad times.”

I’ve stated (to much disagreement from the EE community) that AMD needs to get its house in order and get back on a secure track for profitability before it can move on and fully benefit from any design innovations. And while I continue to believe that AMD’s best bet for that would be to sell off all or most of its manufacturing assets, allowing it a major cash infusion and the ability to better focus on design, this week’s news could be a step toward a proper reorganization.

AMD promoted Randy Allen to head its computing solutions group, forming a central engineering organization to be co-led by veteran engineering executives Chekib Akrout and Jeff VerHeul. The new group is tasked with directing the development and execution of AMD’s technology and product roadmaps in partnership with its business units and could, assuming AMD soundly executes the move, provide the company with a more solid core structure than it has had in the past.

It is also encouraging to see AMD sourcing execs with experience at its partners IBM and Freescale. The trio of companies have worked very closely in upstate New York on manufacturing initiatives and the execs, presumably, are familiar with the inner and outer workings of AMD. If Sunnyvale, Calif-based AMD does sell off its fabs, ex-IBM execs in house could support a closer relationship between AMD and IBM’s East Fishkill, NY, fab.

For more on the reorg and execs, see our related news story “AMD creates central engineering organization as Rivas resigns,” but in short: Allen is a 24-year AMD veteran was most recently responsible for the company’s server and workstation business. Akrout joins AMD after serving as VP of design technology at Freescale, prior to which he worked at IBM where he was responsible for Big Blue’s work on the development of the Cell processor. VerHeul also has IBM experience under his belt and joined AMD in August 2005 after a 25-year career with the Armonk, NY-based company.

Will the new blood and central engineering group help bring life back to AMD? Share your thoughts on the executive and organizational changes below.

–Suzanne Deffree, Managing Editor, News