Raja Koduri leaves AMD

Raja Koduri has produced a memo revealing that today will be his last day working for AMD after four years of service (excluding his time at AMD prior to moving to Apple until 2013, when he was rehired), the last two years of which have been spent as head of the Radeon Technologies Group (RTG), which oversees all things graphics at the chip maker.

The news comes following an extended leave of absence taken by Koduri after the launch of the consumer Radeon RX Vega parts. Many theorised that he would not be returning to AMD in December as originally stated, and this memo confirms it. The memo was obtained by HEXUS, and given its importance, we've reproduced it in its entirety here:

To my AMD family,

Forty is a significant number in history.  It is a number representing transition, testing and change. I have just spent forty days away from the office going through such a transition. It was an important time with my family, and it also offered me a rare space for reflection. During this time I have come to the extremely difficult conclusion that it is time for me to leave RTG and AMD.

I have no question in my mind that RTG, and AMD, are marching firmly in the right direction as high-performance computing becomes ever-more-important in every aspect of our lives.  I believe wholeheartedly in what we are doing with Vega, Navi and beyond, and I am incredibly proud of how far we have come and where we are going. The whole industry has stood up and taken notice of what we are doing. As I think about how computing will evolve, I feel more and more that I want to pursue my passion beyond hardware and explore driving broader solutions.

I want to thank Lisa and the AET for enabling me to pursue my passion during the last four years at AMD, and especially the last two years with RTG. Lisa has my utmost respect for exhibiting the courage to enable me with RTG, for believing in me and for going out of her way to support me.  I would also like to call out Mark Papermaster who brought me into AMD, for his huge passion for technology and for his relentless support through many difficult phases.  And of course, I want to thank each and every one of my direct staff and my indirect staff who have worked so hard with me to build what we have now got.  I am very proud of the strong leaders we have and I'm fully confident that they can execute on the compelling roadmap ahead.

I will continue to be an ardent fan and user of AMD technologies for both personal and professional use.

As I mentioned, leaving AMD and RTG has been an extremely difficult decision for me.  But I felt it is the right one for me personally at this point.  Time will tell.  I will be following with great interest the progress you will make over the next several years.

On a final note, I have asked a lot of you in the last two years.  You've always delivered.  You've made me successful both personally and professionally, for which I thank you all from the bottom of my heart.  I have these final requests from you as I leave:

• Stay focused on the roadmap!
• Deliver on your commitments!
• Continue the culture of Passion, Persistence and Play!
• Make AMD proud!
• Make me proud!

Yours,

Raja

According to HEXUS' sources, Lisa Su, chief executive officer at AMD, will oversee RTG - as she has been doing in Raja's absence - for the foreseeable future, but a successor is being sought, and this is expected to happen within a few months. Additional resources are also being pumped into RTG in order to strengthen AMD's graphics arm. AMD would not be drawn to comment on whether Raja's departure would meaningfully impact Navi, the firm's next GPU architecture. It is, apparently, business as usual, with the company keen to highlight new ventures such as the recently announced joint venture with Intel, which will see semi-custom Radeon cores paired with Intel CPU cores for the first time.

We wish Raja all the best in his future endeavours.