Intel has hired Tom Lantzsch away from chip design competitor ARM Holdings to run its newly separated business focused on making processors for smart, connected devices.
Lantzsch, who had been at ARM since 2006, will join Intel in January as a senior vice president and general manager of the Internet of things unit, which makes chips for everything from street lamps that can monitor traffic to drones that can automatically avoid obstacles. The unit, which had previously also included Intel’s products for automated cars, was overseen by long time company veteran Doug Davis. But with the automated car effort separated into its own unit, Davis will surrender oversight of the IoT business.
Intel announced the new structure, separating in two what had been one business unit under Davis, in a blog post on Tuesday. Lantzsch will be “an accelerant leader for Intel and our industry – leading with a pure passion for how smart and connected devices will enrich our daily lives,” Intel president Murthy Renduchintala wrote in the post.
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The chip giant is looking for new businesses—like supplying microprocessors for automated cars and smart devices as well as machine learning and cloud data centers—to stimulate growth as its core market supplying the brains to personal computers continues to shrink. But the Internet of things business remains small, accounting for only about 4% of Intel’s overall revenue in the third quarter.
And not all of Intel’s moves to find new businesses have succeeded under CEO Brian Krzanich. Intel used to have a separate business unit to make chips for mobile devices, but after the effort lost $4 billion in two years, Krzanich combined it into the personal computer effort.
With the newly separated business units, Intel (INTC) will likely report financial results for automated cars and smart devices separately as well. Along with Davis, Intel also hired Kathy Winter from auto parts supplier Delphi to oversee the new automated car unit.
ARM (ARMH), bought by Japanese tech conglomerate Softbank Group for $32 billion in September, declined to comment on the move. Lantzsch was most recently an executive vice president in charge of corporate strategy at the chip design company that bested Intel in the mobile arena. Earlier in his career, he worked at Motorola and Texas Instruments.
