Another Long-time Graphics Leader Leaves AMD
Another former ATI employee has left the nation's second-largest CPU giant, AMD.
Just weeks after AMD's CTO of graphics Eric Demers left the company to pursue other opportunities, the company's Director of the Client Technology Unit, Godfrey Cheng, has also jumped ship after serving 12 years.
Cheng was recently part of AMD's high-profile Llano launch. But long before that, he was one of the principle players behind ATI's All-in-Wonder series of graphics cards and TV tuners which debut in 1996. He headed the project from 1998 to 2006, and then moved over to gaming technologies like Avivo and CrossFire for a year as ATI's Director of Marketing, Platform Technologies.
In 2006 he also became AMD's Director of Technical Marketing, Graphics Products where he was involved in roadmap and technical marketing for 3D graphics, video, display, power and audio technologies. He was also a technology and product evangelist responsible for benchmarking and hardware certification.
As AMD's Director of Client Technology Unit, Client Division in 2010, he managed and drove technologies such as x86, parallel compute, video and graphics for AMD's PC Client group. He also managed the competitive analysis team, the AMD performance lab, and contributed to AMD's M&A strategies.
"Marketing and Product Executive with extensive experience with PC products with focus in the areas of CPU, graphics, and video technologies," reads his LinkedIn summary. "Key strengths include product management, technology management, product marketing, extensive business development and negotiation experience working with all key Original Equipment Manufacturers, Distributors, Retailers and ecosystem partners. Passion for developing and productizing technologies that literally change the world."
The reasons for his departure is officially unknown, but he follows another former ATI employee (Demers). Rumor has it that he parted ways with AMD because it became clear the company wasn't going to follow Rick Bergman's ideas for how to best leverage AMD's graphics and APU assets. AMD has reportedly acknowledged the departure, and understands the possible concern for his timing after the launch of the GTX 680 and Demer's departure earlier this year.
"The company affirmed that it remains entirely committed to its GPU technology at all market segments," reports HotHardware. "AMD believes its New Zealand and 'Sea Islands' architectures will be a potent challenge for Nvidia's GK104 and noted that the Radeon HD 7000 family competes very well against Kepler's reduced GPGPU performance."
Stay On the Cutting Edge: Get the Tom's Hardware Newsletter
Get Tom's Hardware's best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox.
So far AMD has not released an official announcement.
-
So the graphics guys who came up with good products are leaving yet the CPU guys who made failure after failure are still there.Reply
-
kyee7k For one moment, I thought the title of the article was referring to XFX leaving ATI/AMD. Sad man, now I(Reply -
yezster I hope AMD/ATI will not completely sink out... Or else we will have Intel and Nvidia monopolizing the market and it will be BAD news for consumers... and I mean BAD news!!!Reply -
Anonymous_26 Another one bites the dustReply
Another one bites the dust
And another one gone, and another one gone
Another one bites the dust
Hey, I(ntels) gonna get you too
Another one bites the dust -
eklipz330 wowww what are you smokingggReply
ATi started doing PHENOMENALLY after about 1 year they were acquired... they slumped on the hd 2xxx series, but the hd 3xxx fixed it in less than a year... and ever since the hd 4xxx series, they've been doing GREAT. i just RECENTLY replaced my hd 4850... i paid like $100 for it.
and before that, they were getting their asses handed to them regularly. at least now they put up a good fight -
monsta "AMD believes its New Zealand and 'Sea Islands' architectures will be a potent challenge for Nvidia's GK104 and noted that the Radeon HD 7000 family competes very well against Kepler's reduced GPGPU performance."Reply
GK110 is all I have to say.... -
memadmax ATI and Nvidia have been going back and forth since the beginning of time.Reply
I think it's alright that these guys are leaving, bring in new blood and shake things up for once. -
sp0nger Does suprise me, AMD will always be #2 to Nvida as long as they keep playing catch up. "AMD believes its New Zealand and 'Sea Islands' architectures will be a potent challenge for Nvidia's GK104" Always playing catch up. Next cards come out that are just barely better than Nvidias year old cards, then Nvida releases there next gen that puts AMD way behind again.Reply -
nforce4max If it keeps up amd is going under for sure, I hate to even think about what will result of it.Reply