Intel taps semiconductor veteran Lip-Bu Tan as new CEO

“This is welcome news for Intel Corporation, as it appoints an industry veteran that has intrinsic understanding of the semiconductor industry, both from a product design aspect as well as the needs of enabling chip manufacturing – an area that Intel Foundry needs help in making their tools more user friendly and accessible for potential customers,” said Jack Gold, president of J.Gold Associates.

“I think he understands the business well,” said Alvin Nguyen, senior analyst with Forrester Research. “There are very few people Intel could have brought in with the right background, and he was one of them.”

He also gave Tan high marks for his time at Cadence. “He was able to keep them relevant of in terms of keeping them the platform to design on. But it’s a different part of the semiconductor industry. Success there doesn’t mean success at Intel, so I’m looking forward to seeing how he addresses things,” said Nguyen.

Tan is coming into a chaotic situation, as Intel has gone through four (one set of co-CEOs) CEOs in the last seven years, has seen significant erosion of market share, and its stock has dropped 60% in value in the past year, to the point that it was removed from the Dow Jones Industrial Average and replaced with Nvidia.

There have been rumors for some time that Intel is up for sale, with everyone from Broadcom to Elon Musk rumored to be the buyer. There is also talk of splitting the company, with the fabs going to one customer — most notably Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) and the semiconductor business going to another. Tan’s appointment should put those rumors to rest experts say.

“Intel has a powerful and differentiated computing platform, a vast customer installed base and a robust manufacturing footprint that is getting stronger by the day as we rebuild our process technology roadmap,” Tan said in a statement issued by Intel. “I am eager to join the company and build upon the work the entire Intel team has been doing to position our business for the future.”