Mark Papermaster, CTO and EVP at AMD
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Mark Papermaster, Chief Technical Officer and Executive Vice President of AMD, has had a distinguished career. Starting at IBM in the early '80s, he transitioned from working on mainframe processors to leading the development of Apple’s iPhone and iPod product lines underSteve Jobs. Eventually, in 2011, he moved to AMD, where he and CEO Lisa Su have driven the company’s transformation and innovation in through several strategic decisions and acquisitions. Together, they have established AMD as a “bankable supplier” and apartner of choice, a long way from the company’s decades as a second supplier to Intel.
AMD has significantly evolved its offerings, moving from its origins as a scrappy underdog cloning Intel processors to becoming a major player with a comprehensive portfoliofor the age of AI and custom compute.This includes CPUs, GPUs, AI accelerators, adaptive computing with FPGAs, a robust software ecosystem, custom development, and,via the pending acquisition of ZT, rack-scale systems. With historical acquisitions such as ATI (GPU), and the recent acquisition of Xilinx (FPGA), AMDis now a leaderin diverse markets such as data centers, gaming consoles, and embedded systems. This breadth and vertical integration are vital to AMD’s role as a trusted supplier ofcomputing solutions. The common threads in the company’s offerings are a focus on performance and open-ness.
Maintaining and growing margins is a critical focus for AMD as it continues to innovate. Key strategies include the modular design approach, exemplified by chiplet architecture, which allows for flexibility and efficiency in solutiondevelopment. AMD also emphasizes a rigorous roadmap process that aligns technological innovations with business objectives, ensuring profitability