AMD has reportedly hired two senior engineers to help the chipmaker expand into new markets beyond the the slowing PC industry. These two new hires include a previous Qualcomm engineer and a previous Apple engineer, both of which have taken high-level positions within America's #2 chip company.
According to unnamed sources, Charles Matar has expertise in low-power and embedded chip design. He previously worked at Qualcomm, and will now serve as AMD's vice president of System-on-Chip Development. Joining him will be former Apple engineer Wayne Meretsky who is now AMD's new vice president of software IP development. He will lead software development for AMD's various chips.
Both Matar and Meretsky reportedly worked at AMD earlier in their careers. Their return follows another return of a former AMD employee, Jim Keller, who joined the company as chief architect in August 2012. Previously he served at Apple as a director in charge of designing mobile processors used in the iPads and iPhones.
AMD is slated to release a new low-power processor, Temash, for tablets and hybrid laptops running Windows 8 Pro during the first half of 2013. The company is also expected to release its Kabini laptop processor, which promises 50-percent better performance than its predecessor, in early 2013. Matar will reportedly focus on designing a post-Temash SoC and beyond.
AMD's need to leap beyond the PC sector isn't unexpected. Even its partners are flocking to mobile form factors as market tastes move from desktop to tablets and hybrids. Market watchers are predicting the start of a post-PC era, and a declining PC market seems to pave the way.
Unfortunately, 80-percent of AMD's revenue is generated from the PC sector. AMD has felt the impact of this declining market, and is now quickly looking to enter different avenues to make a buck. These avenues include communications, microservers, digital signs and stripped down "thin client" computers, Reuters said.
