Intel names long-term successor to its process technology development chief
That's an excellent way to say that Intel does not give up on its fabs.

Intel told its manufacturing employees on Wednesday that it had chosen Navid Shahriari to eventually take over from Ann Kelleher as head of process technology development, reports Oregon Live. Kelleher remains in her role for now and the announcements highlights Intel's focus on ensuring a seamless leadership transition. Yet, the revelation of the succession plan is meant to emphasize that Intel is serious about its manufacturing capacities and has a long-term vision.
Ann Kelleher joined Intel in 1996 from academia. She served as fabs manager (in Ireland, Oregon, New Mexico, and Arizona) and general manager of the fab sort manufacturing till 2020, when she was appointed to lead the development of Intel's process technologies. Without any doubt, she has vast experience with Intel's manufacturing operations. Her latest accomplishment is the execution of Pat Gelsinger's five nodes in four years plan. The most critical part of that journey — the Intel 18A process technology — is set to enter mass production next year.
Navid Shahriari began his career at Intel in 1989. Currently, he is responsible for design engineering from Arizona, a vital process that bridges the gap between chip architecture, process technology, and mass production. He will shift to fabrication process development as part of the succession plan. However, it remains to be seen what formal role he will take and whether he will relocate from Arizona to Oregon, where Intel's development labs and fabs are. But the bigger question is when Shahriari will succeed Kelleher, though it is likely that this will happen several years down the road.
"Ann is not going anywhere," a statement by Intel published by Oregon Live reads. Given the importance of technology development (TD), we have a robust long-term succession planning process. Navid is taking on new responsibilities to be prepared to eventually take over the TD role. This reflects long-term succession planning while Ann remains firmly in her role."
The transition announcement comes amid pressure on Intel's chief executive Pat Gelsinger to split manufacturing operations into a separate company, something the company's long-time rival AMD did in 2008 – 2009. Most recently, a group of former board of directors even called the U.S. government to use CHIPS & Science Act money assigned to Intel through grants and loans to use those nearly $20 billion as leverage to force Intel to split into two companies. Yet, announcing the succession plan can be considered a clear statement about Pat Gelsinger's vision for Intel.
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Anton Shilov is a contributing writer at Tom’s Hardware. Over the past couple of decades, he has covered everything from CPUs and GPUs to supercomputers and from modern process technologies and latest fab tools to high-tech industry trends.
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joeer77 Ann would be gone if I was Pat. She took way to long to adopt EUV. Start taking risks Pat.Reply -
thestryker
Good thing you're not Pat then since she had nothing to do with the decision to not buy EUV machines and gamble on high density 10nm using DUV instead.joeer77 said:Ann would be gone if I was Pat. She took way to long to adopt EUV. Start taking risks Pat. -
dalek1234 "That's an excellent way to say that Intel does not give up on its fabs."Reply
Or maybe it's about making changes before getting rid of the fabs.
Right now, only Intel knows the reasons for this change, maybe somebody will leak the reason to MLID and we will soon hear what that reason was -
macdodger This group should know the answer to this simple question. Is Intel using High NA or Low NA EUV to build 18A in Chandler. And if it's Low NA why did they move their Low NA tools recently from Oregon to Ireland and not to Chandler. And if it's High NA were they being dishonest or just cute when they said that Oregon was getting it's second High NA tool recently, indicating as any freshman English teacher would tell you that Oregon was getting it's second tool, not Intel overall. Leading one to ask, exactly how many tools do they already have in Chandler and what type are they.Reply -
thestryker
AFAIK when it comes to volume Chandler is DUV, Ireland is EUV (they also have DUV, but was first volume fab to get EUV so I'm not sure how much capacity is left) and Oregon is EUV and High-NA (this is also the development facility so they have DUV, but I don't believe there's volume manufacturing left). Ohio was supposed to be 18A for their first node which would mean Chandler would likely be transitioned to the "12" node Intel is developing with UMC. It's not clear what sort of changes may be in store due to the fab delays.macdodger said:This group should know the answer to this simple question. Is Intel using High NA or Low NA EUV to build 18A in Chandler. And if it's Low NA why did they move their Low NA tools recently from Oregon to Ireland and not to Chandler. And if it's High NA were they being dishonest or just cute when they said that Oregon was getting it's second High NA tool recently, indicating as any freshman English teacher would tell you that Oregon was getting it's second tool, not Intel overall. Leading one to ask, exactly how many tools do they already have in Chandler and what type are they.
14A is supposed to be the first High-NA volume node.