Former Samsung, AMD chip executive joins Apple

Word has hit the wire that Jim Mergard has left Samsung's Austin, Texas chip design team to take up a position at Apple. Before joining Samsung, Mergard worked at AMD for 16 years, where he served as Vice President and Chief Engineer. He was known for playing a leading role in the development of AMD's low-power E-series APUs, part of the Brazos platform.

What Mergard will work on at Apple is unknown, but it's speculated that it may be an ARM-based project.

The blog says Megard was among the "most prominent" new recruits in that team. Mergard's career also included a 16-year stint at AMD, where he served Vice President and Chief Engineer and was "known for playing a leading role in the development" of AMD's low-power E-series APUs, which are part of the Brazos platform.

This hire may be more significant than some realize. Patrick Moorhead, a former AMD VP and Corporate Fellow who now heads his own analyst firm, told the Journal that Mergard offers "deep expertise" in system-on-a-chip devices. The way Moorhead sees it, Mergard would be "very capable of pulling together internal and external resources to do a PC processor for Apple."

Source: The Tech Report