Intel is set to hire an executive from memory chipmaker Micron to head its foundry biz as the company pursues its strategy of turning its former internal manufacturing operations into a money-spinning concern.

The Santa Clara giant said it has appointed Dr Naga Chandrasekaran as chief global operations officer, executive vice president, and general manager of the Intel Foundry Manufacturing and Supply Chain organization.

Chandrasekaran was until now senior vice president for Technology Development at Micron, and takes the reins from Keyvan Esfarjani, who is retiring from the semiconductor outfit after nearly 30 years.

Chandrasekaran will be a member of Intel's executive leadership team, reporting to CEO Pat Gelsinger, while Esfarjani is set to remain with Intel through to the end of the year to ensure a seamless transition.

Chandrasekaran joined Micron in 2001 as a development engineer and since then has held a number of positions in different process areas and across different Micron facilities worldwide. He was appointed to his most recent role in 2019. This included oversight of the chipmaker's development and engineering efforts in new memory technologies and advanced packaging.

"Naga is a highly accomplished executive whose deep semiconductor manufacturing and technology development expertise will be a tremendous addition to our team," Gelsinger said in a statement accompanying the news.

According to Intel, its Foundry business encompasses the technology development, global manufacturing, and foundry customer service and ecosystem operations. It is intended to incorporate everything that a fabless chip company would need to get their designs into production silicon.

When Chandrasekaran joins on August 12, he will be in charge of the worldwide manufacturing operations, which includes Fab Sort Manufacturing, Assembly Test Manufacturing, strategic planning for Intel Foundry, corporate quality assurance, and supply chain.

He will be working closely with the other Intel Foundry leaders comprising Dr Ann Kelleher, EVP and GM of Foundry Technology Development, Kevin O'Buckley, SVP and GM of Foundry Services, plus chief financial officer Lorenzo Flores.

Intel disclosed plans to separate out its semiconductor manufacturing side of the company from the business units that develop its processors and other chips at least as far back as 2022. The notion was to shake up its foundry operations to enable them to service both internal and external customers on a contract manufacturing basis.

One reason for doing this is that the cost of building fabrication plants fitted with the most advanced process node technology has become astronomical. It is so high that it is uneconomical for Intel to use it just for its own chips, as CFO David Zinsner disclosed in an interview at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference a few months ago.

The cost is so high that Chipzilla has been forced into schemes such as handing over its Fab 34 at Leixlip in Ireland to a joint venture between itself and private equity biz Apollo Global Management in exchange for $11 billion.

Earlier this year, it was revealed that the foundry business took a $7 billion operating loss last year and Gelsinger said the figures for 2024 could turn out to be even worse. However, the company is expecting a return to profitability by 2027, and has ambitions to become the number two global foundry operator behind Taiwanese titan TSMC by 2030. ®

https://www.theregister.com//2024/07/26/intel_poaches_micron_exec_to/