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Press reports indicate that Advanced Micro Devices has hired away one of the leading designers of the Itanium processor, along with eight of his colleagues, from competitor Intel. Samuel Naffziger had only been with the company for less than a year, having been hired away previously from Hewlett-Packard in 2005.
AMD confirmed the move Wednesday and said Naffziger would work on chip design as a senior fellow. However, the company would not elaborate on the work he or his counterparts would be doing. While Intel has downplayed the loss, Naffziger played a key part in several chip launches, including the McKinley and Montecito processors.
According to Real World Technologies, Naffziger joined AMD in either late February or early March and would assist AMD in opening a design center in Fort Collins. The small Colorado city is also where Intel does much of its Itanium design work.