Intel brings back Skylake designer to co-lead chip development

Intel has re-hired Shlomit Weiss, a key figure in the development of its client chips, to co-manage its design engineering group.

Based in Israel, Weiss worked at Mellanox as VP of its platform engineering group and as general manager of its client microprocessor products group. In her first tenure at Intel, she managed the design of the company's Sandy Bridge and Skylake processor families.

Now, she will be jointly responsible for co-leading client chip development and design.

Weiss began working at Intel in 1989, leaving in 2017 to become senior VP at Mellanox before Nvidia acquired it in 2020. She has a Master’s degree in computer engineering from the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, Israel. She founded the Intel Israeli Women Forum, a group that mentors women in technology roles.

She will be working alongside Sunil Shenoy, another Intel veteran that the company rehired in January. Both of these appointments are part of a promise that CEO Pat Gelsinger made to rehire key leaders when he took the helm in January.

Gelsinger also bought back Glenn Hinton, a former senior fellow at the company, who came out of retirement to work on what he said was a high-performance CPU project. Gelsinger's appointment was a key factor in his decision, he said.

The new leadership also seems to have factored into Weiss's decision. "As Pat Gelsinger charts a new, bold strategy for Intel, I am committed to ensure that the company continues to lead in developing chips. A lot of work and challenges ahead. I am excited and full of energy to address them. It will be great experience to me and all engineers. Stay tuned," she said in a statement.

Gelsinger continues to shake up Intel's organizational structure, recently restructuring its data platform group into two units. He also introduced two new business units in June, focusing on software and high-performance computing.

Weiss faces difficult industry conditions as she returns to Intel. The technology sector continues to face a chip shortage that is affecting supply chains in the automotive sector, along with data communications and consumer computing devices.