Intel talent bleed continues as Xeon chip architect heads for the escape hatch
(2025/09/12)
- Reference: 1757629324
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2025/09/11/intel_loses_chief_architect/
- Source link:
The chief architect behind Intel's Xeon line of server CPUs is leaving Chipzilla for greener pastures.
Senior fellow and Xeon Chief Ronak Singhal's nearly 30-year tenure at the x86 giant will come to an end later this month, according to a CRN [1]report , which The Register has independently confirmed.
The Carnegie Mellon alum holds degrees in electrical and computer engineering, along with at least 30 patents involving CPUs. Singhal joined Intel in 1997 after spending the previous summer as an intern at Cyrix.
[2]
After a year in Intel's Rotation Engineers Program, he spent the remainder of his tenure helping to develop some of the chipmaker's most consequential and, at times, controversial processors. Most notably, Singhal oversaw the core development of Intel's 22nm Haswell and 14nm Broadwell processor architectures.
[3]
[4]
His innovations aren't limited to the datacenter either, with his architectural contributions playing a significant role in the success of Intel's Core and Atom processor families as well.
Despite Singhal's contributions, Intel's Xeon division has faced steep competition over the past few years, not just from rival AMD but from a growing number of Arm-based custom cloud CPUs. According to a recent Dell'Oro group [5]report , Arm CPUs now account for 25 percent of the server market, while Mercury Research reports that AMD now commands about 41 percent of server revenues.
[6]
Despite some missteps, the long-delayed Sapphire Rapids launch, which allowed AMD to extend its core count lead, Singhal is arguably leaving the Xeon division in the most competitive position it's held in years.
After trailing Team Red on core count, clocks, memory bandwidth, and PCIe, Intel closed the gap with the [7]launch of its Granite Rapids Xeon 6900 processors last fall.
Singhal is only the latest Xeon lead to jump ship since the start of the year. In January, Sailesh Kottapalli, another senior fellow, [8]left for Qualcomm barely a month after former CEO Pat Gelsinger's unceremonious "retirement."
[9]Arm wrestles away 25% share of server market thanks to Nvidia's home-grown CPUs
[10]Intel shuffles executive deckchairs, tosses 30-year veteran chief overboard
[11]Trump made Intel an offer it couldn't refuse
[12]US government snaps up 10% of Intel for $8.9B
Even before Gelsinger's eviction, Intel's datacenter group has been something of a revolving door. Last summer Singhal's long-time colleague Lisa Spelman [13]departed the company, eventually landing a spot as CEO of HPC interconnect vendor Cornelis Networks.
Her replacement, Ryan Tabrah, lasted seven months in the role, about half as long as Intel datacenter boss Justin Hotard, who [14]defected for the forests of Finland to lead Nokia as its new President and CEO back in April.
[15]
In fact, the churn now extends all the way to the top. On Monday, Intel [16]announced its CEO of Products, Michelle Johnston Holthaus, would be leaving the business. The move is part of a broader executive shakeup that will see former Arm engineer Kevork Kechichian take over as head of Intel's datacenter engineering group. Jim Johnson, meanwhile, will take over as head of the chipmaker's client computing group while Srinivasan (Srini) Iyengar will head up a new central engineering division.
In a statement, Intel confirmed Singhal's departure but declined to comment beyond that. Singhal didn't respond to a request for comment. ®
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[1] https://www.crn.com/news/components-peripherals/2025/intel-is-losing-its-second-xeon-chief-architect-in-eight-months?itc=refresh
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/systems&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aMOa1SJGWw6Y8Cnqz53MBwAAARM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
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[5] https://www.theregister.com/2025/09/11/nvidias_graceblackwell_drives_arms_cpu/
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/systems&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aMOa1SJGWw6Y8Cnqz53MBwAAARM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2024/09/24/intel_xeon_6p/
[8] https://www.linkedin.com/in/sailesh-kottapalli-17a4172/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2025/09/11/nvidias_graceblackwell_drives_arms_cpu/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2025/09/08/intel_executive_changes/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/25/intel_gets_trumped/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/23/us_government_snaps_up_10/
[13] https://www.cornelisnetworks.com/stories/cornelis-networks-appoints-lisa-spelman-as-ceo
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2025/02/10/intel_hotard_nokia/
[15] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/systems&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aMOa1SJGWw6Y8Cnqz53MBwAAARM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[16] https://www.theregister.com/2025/09/08/intel_executive_changes/
[17] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Senior fellow and Xeon Chief Ronak Singhal's nearly 30-year tenure at the x86 giant will come to an end later this month, according to a CRN [1]report , which The Register has independently confirmed.
The Carnegie Mellon alum holds degrees in electrical and computer engineering, along with at least 30 patents involving CPUs. Singhal joined Intel in 1997 after spending the previous summer as an intern at Cyrix.
[2]
After a year in Intel's Rotation Engineers Program, he spent the remainder of his tenure helping to develop some of the chipmaker's most consequential and, at times, controversial processors. Most notably, Singhal oversaw the core development of Intel's 22nm Haswell and 14nm Broadwell processor architectures.
[3]
[4]
His innovations aren't limited to the datacenter either, with his architectural contributions playing a significant role in the success of Intel's Core and Atom processor families as well.
Despite Singhal's contributions, Intel's Xeon division has faced steep competition over the past few years, not just from rival AMD but from a growing number of Arm-based custom cloud CPUs. According to a recent Dell'Oro group [5]report , Arm CPUs now account for 25 percent of the server market, while Mercury Research reports that AMD now commands about 41 percent of server revenues.
[6]
Despite some missteps, the long-delayed Sapphire Rapids launch, which allowed AMD to extend its core count lead, Singhal is arguably leaving the Xeon division in the most competitive position it's held in years.
After trailing Team Red on core count, clocks, memory bandwidth, and PCIe, Intel closed the gap with the [7]launch of its Granite Rapids Xeon 6900 processors last fall.
Singhal is only the latest Xeon lead to jump ship since the start of the year. In January, Sailesh Kottapalli, another senior fellow, [8]left for Qualcomm barely a month after former CEO Pat Gelsinger's unceremonious "retirement."
[9]Arm wrestles away 25% share of server market thanks to Nvidia's home-grown CPUs
[10]Intel shuffles executive deckchairs, tosses 30-year veteran chief overboard
[11]Trump made Intel an offer it couldn't refuse
[12]US government snaps up 10% of Intel for $8.9B
Even before Gelsinger's eviction, Intel's datacenter group has been something of a revolving door. Last summer Singhal's long-time colleague Lisa Spelman [13]departed the company, eventually landing a spot as CEO of HPC interconnect vendor Cornelis Networks.
Her replacement, Ryan Tabrah, lasted seven months in the role, about half as long as Intel datacenter boss Justin Hotard, who [14]defected for the forests of Finland to lead Nokia as its new President and CEO back in April.
[15]
In fact, the churn now extends all the way to the top. On Monday, Intel [16]announced its CEO of Products, Michelle Johnston Holthaus, would be leaving the business. The move is part of a broader executive shakeup that will see former Arm engineer Kevork Kechichian take over as head of Intel's datacenter engineering group. Jim Johnson, meanwhile, will take over as head of the chipmaker's client computing group while Srinivasan (Srini) Iyengar will head up a new central engineering division.
In a statement, Intel confirmed Singhal's departure but declined to comment beyond that. Singhal didn't respond to a request for comment. ®
Get our [17]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.crn.com/news/components-peripherals/2025/intel-is-losing-its-second-xeon-chief-architect-in-eight-months?itc=refresh
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/systems&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aMOa1SJGWw6Y8Cnqz53MBwAAARM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
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[5] https://www.theregister.com/2025/09/11/nvidias_graceblackwell_drives_arms_cpu/
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/systems&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aMOa1SJGWw6Y8Cnqz53MBwAAARM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2024/09/24/intel_xeon_6p/
[8] https://www.linkedin.com/in/sailesh-kottapalli-17a4172/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2025/09/11/nvidias_graceblackwell_drives_arms_cpu/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2025/09/08/intel_executive_changes/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/25/intel_gets_trumped/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/23/us_government_snaps_up_10/
[13] https://www.cornelisnetworks.com/stories/cornelis-networks-appoints-lisa-spelman-as-ceo
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2025/02/10/intel_hotard_nokia/
[15] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/systems&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aMOa1SJGWw6Y8Cnqz53MBwAAARM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[16] https://www.theregister.com/2025/09/08/intel_executive_changes/
[17] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
If he's been around for nearly 30 years
It might be just retirement around the age he already planned. He's clearly in his 50s, and probably has plenty of money. Either that or maybe he figures if he doesn't leave and start up his own company now he'll miss his chance.