Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), the chip designer, announced that it poached Don Newell three weeks ago to become the company's new chief technology officer (CTO) for its server microprocessors.

Newell, a chip tech from rival Intel, will occupy the server CTO position that has remained vacant in the wake of the "Istanbul" six-core Opteron launch last summer. The role was most recently held by Mike Goddard, who was previously the CTO for client processors.

The CTO post has remained vacant since the departure of long-time IBM chip designer and Newisys CEO Phil Hester from AMD in 2008. Since that time, different units have appointed their own CTOs and reported to group general managers.

Newell has recently worked on data center networking and system-on-a-chip projects as a senior principal engineer at Intel Labs. Newell stint with Intel lasted for 16 years. He was credited for the I/O Acceleration Technology (IOAT) feature in the company's resurgent Xeon processors. The solution was initially delivered four years ago based on the Core architecture. Newell was also responsible for developing the first digital TV receiver for PCs and is co-author of the IETF RFC2429 protocol that transmits video over the Internet.

Newell has more than 20 patents to his name and has published more than 60 papers on a wide range of topics. He obtained his BSc from the University of Oregon. He started his career at Sequent Computers, x86 SMP upstart, a prominent contributor to Linux development and chip manufacturing and research for Intel.

Newell will be responsible for defining AMD's long-term server chip and chipset roadmaps as the company's new CTO. NewelL's immediate superior is Rick Bergman, who is senior vice president and general manager of AMD's Products Group.

Newell's appointment comes on the heels of Manju Hegde. Hegde was vice president of CUDA technical marketing at Nvidia, the GPU maker. He was appointed as corporate vice president of the Fusion Experience Program last May.