Breaking News: Eric Demers leaving AMD

[Lupine]

Eric Demers, AMD Corporate VP and CTO, is leaving AMD. From AMD:

Eric Demers, AMD Corporate Vice President and CTO, Graphics Business Unit, has decided leave AMD to pursue other opportunities.

AMD Chief Technology Officer Mark Papermaster will assume interim responsibility for the Graphics Business Unit CTO role until a replacement is found.

AMD remains fully committed to our critical graphics IP development and discrete GPU products. We have a tremendous depth of talent in our organization, a game plan that is resonating with our customers and our team, and we are continuing to bring graphics-performance-leading products to market. We will attract the right technology leader for this role.

We thank Eric for his contributions to the business and wish him well in his future endeavors.

[Blín D'ñero]

Quoted from

http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthre...post1336841703

Yikes. AMD announcement and discussion in news forum:

Breaking News: Eric Demers leaving AMD

Is that bad? ??? ("Yikes")
I mean, does it matter? The guy taking his place is not good enough?
There WILL be someone taking that place, right?

[caveman-jim]

This is really bad news.

https://twitter.com/#!/PatrickMoorhe...99347698982915
@PatrickMoorhead: This will hurt. || BREAKING: Eric Demers, CTO Graphics Leaves AMD - Bright Side Of News*: http://t.co/T8bkEjap

Reading between the lines, I'd say the newly appointed CTO Mark Papermaster (who is taking on Eric's CTO Graphics role ) is taking things in a direction that Demers' wasn't interested in pursuing.

[Skynet]

So many changes at AMD, I don't know what to think anymore. Positive change or rats from a sinking ship?

[CurrentlyPissed]

Can you guys clairfy why it is bad? What did Eric excell tat that someone else couldn't?

[caveman-jim]

Can you guys clairfy why it is bad? What did Eric excell tat that someone else couldn't?

Eric was an engineer who rose to become an executive. He helped create the chips inside the Gamecube, N64, Wii, XBOX 360, Radeon, and the chips we're going to buy in the next two years inside consoles and graphics cards.

It's not a matter of him being irreplaceable, nobody is, but more the fact of why would he terminate on immediate notice? Is this a personality conflict? Doubtful. More like a professional disagreement on what he wants to be involved in, he's not interested in the challenges that the new strategy brings. So... no more trying to be the best? Eric has a lot of talent and expertise, and I'm sure he has a lot emotionally vested in AMD/ATI, so for him to walk away from it tells you something that you're not going to like when you hear about it has happened.

[Qb2k5]

So many changes at AMD, I don't know what to think anymore. Positive change or rats from a sinking ship?

Richard Huddy, CatMaker, original AMD CEO, now SirEric? Maybe AMD's vision for the future didn't fit his vision so he decided to leave.

In my opinion AMD has been a mess lately. The Phenom 9500 TLB issue, the failed Bulldozer, gray screen of death with the 5xxx series gpus, no tablet or smartphone solutions, and still no official drivers for the 7970 gpus. What about bullet physics and commercial apps that utilize OpenCL?

[caveman-jim]

CatMaker, what are you talking about? Terry still works for AMD.

[Blacklash]

*sigh*

I wish him all the best.

[Uber_Tiny]

Damn, just back on the 8th Emilio Ghilardi, senior vice president and chief sales officer left as well.

I would start being concerned if more begin to jump.

[guest]

Papermaster worked for IBM, Apple and Cisco.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Papermaster#Separation_from_Apple

On August 7, 2010, The New York Times reported that Papermaster was leaving Apple in the wake of the iPhone 4 antenna troubles.[1] It was later reported by The Wall Street Journal that Papermaster's exit from Apple was rather due to "broader cultural incompability", and a loss of confidence from Apple CEO Steve Jobs.

He has a MS and not a horrid MBA so give him a chance.

[caveman-jim]

Rumors are there's another exec in the offing, too.

Eric has a new job, and it's not at Apple.

[guest]

Rumors are there's another exec in the offing, too.

Eric has a new job, and it's not at Apple.

Does it at least start with a vowel? Or does it start with n?

[Treeckcold57]

Richard Huddy, CatMaker, original AMD CEO, now SirEric? Maybe AMD's vision for the future didn't fit his vision so he decided to leave.

In my opinion AMD has been a mess lately. The Phenom 9500 TLB issue, the failed Bulldozer, gray screen of death with the 5xxx series gpus, no tablet or smartphone solutions, and still no official drivers for the 7970 gpus. What about bullet physics and commercial apps that utilize OpenCL?

Catmaker is actually still working at AMD, but just in a different position.

[caveman-jim]

Does it at least start with a vowel? Or does it start with n?

nope, and nope. use your imagination

[CurrentlyPissed]

nope, and nope. use your imagination

Microsoft? Samsung?

[FiggyG]

+1 to powervr?

[DeathKnight]

nope, and nope. use your imagination

Google...

[caveman-jim]

Microsoft? Samsung?

+1 to powervr?

All good guesses, I think. We'll have to see!

[Kombatant]

If I were Intel, I'd be all over him. And not in that way you pervs

[acroig]

If I were Intel, I'd be all over him. And not in that way you pervs

Totally. Intel has failed miserable every time they wanted a good dicrete GPU. He could jump start that process easily. With Intel's resources they could have a great GPU in no time at all.

[Qb2k5]

Damn I guess we won't see any more AMD people here anymore. I wonder will SirEric still post here?

Humus isn't with AMD, correct? I remember him working on a project with the company who made Just Cause 2.

[Sound_Card]

CatMaker, what are you talking about? Terry still works for AMD.

He might be talking about CATALYSTcatcher aka Steve Morris.
head of the Q/A team I believe team.

[FiggyG]

Damn I guess we won't see any more AMD people here anymore. I wonder will SirEric still post here?

Humus isn't with AMD, correct? I remember him working on a project with the company who made Just Cause 2.

Humus has been back in Sweden and not with AMD for a while. He works for Avalanche Studios

[Sound_Card]

I would love Intel to hire these talents and buy imagination technologies and combine them with their resources and fabs. For sure that would be something amazing to witness.

[Treeckcold57]

I wish a third graphic company would be existed already...you know...like the Matrox. It would be awesome if Matrox and Intel is going to make some graphic cards, so customers would have more options.

[caveman-jim]

Today is Eric's last day at AMD, still no confirmation of where he's going and what he's doing.

[caveman-jim]

Techreport is reporting Qualcomm, seems credible

[guest]

Techreport is reporting Qualcomm, seems credible

He could continue ATI's mobile phone graphics development.. right? I can't believe they sold that to Qualcomm in 2008.

[caveman-jim]

Bitboys, oy

[caveman-jim]

Eric started at Qualcomm this week. Good luck, SirEric!

[CurrentlyPissed]

Nice.

[acroig]

Eric started at Qualcomm this week. Good luck, SirEric!

Seconded.