Amid 10nm Delays, Intel to Break Manufacturing Group Into Three

Intel announced that due to its manufacturing delays, it will split its manufacturing group into three different pieces. Sohail Ahmed, who has been working for Intel since 1984 and leading the manufacturing group since 2016, will quit next month.

Intel Breaks Up Manufacturing Group

With Ahmed’s departure, Intel will break up the manufacturing group into three different divisions. One will be focused on technology development, another on manufacturing and operations and the last on supply chain.

Each of these three new divisions will have their own leader, but they will all answer to Venkata "Murthy" Renduchintala, whom Intel poached from Qualcomm in 2015. Renduchintala is now also the company’s Chief Engineering Officer.

Note that outside of the manufacturing group, Intel has been without a CEO since Brian Krzanich resigned suddenly in June.

Intel’s Manufacturing Struggles

It should surprise no one that Intel has been struggling with its manufacturing over the past few years. The 10nm process was supposed to be ready for mass production in 2015. Instead, mass production of chips on 10nm will not start until next year. 

Intel’s Cannon Lake microarchitecture was supposed to arrive right after Skylake. However, it only started trickling into the market with a single Core i3 SKU that has lower than normal clock speeds. In the mean time, Intel continues to develop 14nm chips, and the company has even gone back in time to develop 22nm chipsets again.