I’ve spoken about Jim Keller many occasions on AnandTech. In the world of semiconductor design, his identify attracts consideration, just by the variety of giant profitable tasks he has labored on, or led, which have created billions of {dollars} of income for these respective corporations. His profession spans DEC, AMD, SiByte, Broadcom, PA Semi, Apple, AMD (once more), Tesla, Intel, and now he’s at Tenstorrent as CTO, growing the subsequent technology of scalable AI {hardware}. Jim’s work ethic has typically been described as ‘having fun with a problem’, and over time when I’ve spoken to him, he at all times desires to be sure that what he’s doing is each that problem, but additionally essential for who he’s working for. More just lately meaning engaged on probably the most thrilling semiconductor course of the day, both high-performance compute, self-driving, or AI.
Jim Keller CTO Tenstorrent |
 Ian Cutress AnandTech |
I’ve just lately interviewed Tenstorrent’s CEO, Ljubisa Bajic, alongside Jim discussing the subsequent technology of AI semiconductors. Today we’re publishing a transcript of a latest chat with Jim, now 5 months into his position at Tenstorrent, however moreso to speak about Jim the individual, reasonably than merely Jim the engineer.
| Jim Keller: Work Experience | ||||
| AnandTech | Company | Title | Important Product |
|
| 1980s | 1998 | DEC | Architect | Alpha |
| 1998 | 1999 | AMD | Lead Architect | K7, K8v1 HyperTransport |
| 1999 | 2000 | SiByte | Chief Architect | MIPS Networking |
| 2000 | 2004 | Broadcom | Chief Architect | MIPS Networking |
| 2004 | 2008 | P.A. Semi | VP Engineering | Low Power Mobile |
| 2008 | 2012 | Apple | VP Engineering | A4 / A5 Mobile |
| 8/2012 | 9/2015 | AMD | Corp VP and Chief Cores Architect |
Skybridge / Ok12 (+ Zen) |
| 1/2016 | 4/2018 | Tesla | VP Autopilot Hardware Engineering |
Fully Self-Driving (FSD) Chip |
| 4/2018 | 6/2020 | Intel | Senior VP Silicon Engineering |
? |
| 2021 | Tenstorrent | President and CTO | TBD | |
Topics Covered
- AMD, Zen, and Project Skybridge
- Managing 10000 People at Intel
- The Future with Tenstorrent
- Engineers and People Skills
- Arm vs x86 vs RISC-V
- Living a Life of Abstraction
- Thoughts on Moore’s Law
- Engineering the Right Team
- Idols, Maturity, and the Human Experience
- Nature vs Nurture
- Pushing Everyone To Be The Best
- Security, Ethics, and Group Belief
- Chips Made by AI, and Beyond Silicon
AMD, Zen, and Project Skybridge
Ian Cutress: Most of the viewers questions are targeted in your time at AMD, so let’s begin there. You labored at AMD on Zen, and on the Skybridge platform – AMD is now gaining market share with the Zen product line, and also you’re off on to larger and higher issues. But there was loads of confusion as to your precise position at AMD throughout that venture. Some individuals consider you have been integral in nailing down Zen’s design, then Zen 2 and Zen three high-level microarchitecture. Others consider that you simply put the individuals in place, signed off at excessive stage, after which went to concentrate on the Arm model of Skybridge, Ok12. Can you give us any readability as to your position there, how deep you went with Zen versus Ok12, or your involvement in issues like Infinity Fabric?
Jim Keller: Yeah, it was a sophisticated venture, proper? At AMD once I joined, that they had Bulldozer and Jaguar, they usually each had some charming options however they weren’t profitable out there. The roadmaps weren’t aggressive, they have been falling behind Intel, and in order that’s not a great factor to do for those who’re already behind – you higher be catching up, not falling behind. So I took the position, and I used to be president of the CPU workforce which I feel once I joined was 500 individuals. Then over the subsequent three years the SoC…
