Intel Opens Austin Development Center

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September 25, 1998 (5:26 PM EDT)

By Andy Patrizio,

Intel said Thursday it has chosen Austin, Texas for its seventh development center, and has hired a former Motorola executive to lead the center.

Mark McDermott comes to Intel (company profile) from one of its biggest competitors. At Motorola (company profile) he was director of the Somerset Design Center, where all PowerPC development took place. During his time with Motorola, McDermott helped found the company's Advanced Systems Technology Lab, where he served as director of system-on-a-chip design.

McDermott has experience both in management and technology, and holds 15 patents in microprocessor design. "He has a lot of technology expertise and a lot of management experience, and he's shown in the past he can lead a team," said Adam Grossberg, a spokesman for Intel.

McDermott will report to Albert Yu, senior vice president of Intel's microprocessor products group. He will be responsible for recruiting talent from the local universities and perhaps other technology firms with local facilities, including Dell and IBM.

The center will be dedicated to developing future Intel processors. Exactly what kind of development will be determined after the staffing has been completed, said Grossberg.

The development center will be housed along with the StrongARM development and marketing center, but the two units will be managed separately. The StrongARM CPU was acquired from Digital Equipment earlier this year, along with an Alpha CPU manufacturing plant in Austin.

Intel picked the right person and location for the new development center, said Keith Deifendorff, editor in chief of The Microprocessor Report, who has known McDermott for some time. "He is about as good a choice as they could get down there," he said.

Austin was the best place to look outside of the Silicon Valley, added Deifendorff. "They have quite a group of engineers that have accumulated down there over the years who are very good," he said. "So they have a good talent pool to draw on."