End of an era: Rory Read steps down as AMD CEO, replaced by Lisa Su

AMD notes that under Read’s leadership, it has substantially drawn down its operating expenses, maintained cash at a constant level of around $1B, and ensured that no new debt comes due for the company until the 2019 timeframe. One thing Su does bring to the CEO transition is a strong background in engineering that Read didn’t really have — prior to serving at AMD, she spent years at Freescale Semiconductor and IBM — at the latter, she was a vice-president in the Semiconductor Research and Development Center and, according to her bio, was “responsible for the strategic direction of IBM’s silicon technologies, joint development alliances and semiconductor R&D operations.” Before IBM, she was a member of the technical staff at Texas Instruments’ Semiconductor Process and Device Center.

At a guess, it seems that Read’s tenure and his original expertise on the business side of the semiconductor industry was meant to help AMD identify new market opportunities and better leverage a new portfolio of products to address them. Lisa Su’s background is more technical — which means she may be better suited to guide the evolution of those technologies as AMD’s CEO.

For now, Su is unlikely to make any major changes to AMD’s existing roadmaps. Unlike Read himself, who was brought in after Dirk Meyer was fired over the Bulldozer disaster, AMD has been executing well and broadly on-time for its various product families. That’s sometimes frustrating to enthusiasts, who wish the timelines were faster, but it’s helped the company rebuild relationships with its various industry partners.