AMD execs quit in corporate shake-up

Blood on the floor as restructure bites

Mario Rivas and Michel Cadieux have stepped down at AMD

Two senior AMD executives have quit as part of a corporate restructuring designed to refocus the company more solidly onto engineering.

Mario Rivas, formerly executive vice president of the Computing Solutions Group, and Michel Cadieux, formerly chief talent officer, have left to "pursue new opportunities".

The moves follow the resignation of chief technical officer Phil Hester in February.

AMD will now have a central engineering department led by Jeff VerHeul, former corporate vice president of design engineering, and Chekib Akrout, who used to work as a designer at Freescale.

"Placing experienced leaders in new, more focused, roles will enhance our execution and progress towards sustained profitability and long-term success," said Dirk Meyer, AMD president and chief operating officer, in a statement.

"The creation of a central engineering organisation aligns and focuses AMD's world-class engineers and intellectual property portfolio on the strong business opportunities in front of us."

AMD is facing a stock meltdown after a number of errors and the perception that the company is slipping behind Intel in innovation.

Hester resigned because of problems with AMD's quad-core server processor, and the new unit will focus on getting faster chips to market more quickly.