Intel Foundry exec leaves to head up Qualcomm's semiconductor biz as Intel shake-up continues

Kevin O'Buckley is departing from Intel following nearly two years as senior VP and GM of Foundry Services. Qualcomm has snapped him up to run its own semiconductor operation.

Taking on the lofty-sounding role of executive VP of global operations and supply chain, O'Buckley will be in charge of "global semiconductor operations across manufacturing engineering, foundry and supplier partnerships, supply chain, and procurement."

That's a pretty big remit. Even foundry and supplier partnerships could be a thorny job with the current demand for semiconductors and reports of long-term contracts required to score capacity with TSMC. Though Qualcomm is currently pushing ahead with plans to get more Arm chips into laptops, in tandem with Microsoft's push for Windows on Arm, which means O'Buckley may end up with a key role in how that all plays out. It all starts with some genuinely good chips and plenty of them—currently Qualcomm's laptop aspirations lay with the Snapdragon X2 Elite.

Prior to Intel, O'Buckley worked at IBM, Marvell Technologies, and GlobalFoundries.

But what of Intel? The company is just under a year into new leadership under Lip-Bu Tan, who has been cagey around manufacturing during that time. A couple months after his appointment to CEO in May last year, Tan said he'd consider putting future manufacturing nodes on pause, more than likely a death sentence in this biz, if Intel couldn't land a major customer. He's been a bit more positive since, as have other Intel execs, though that seems in some part to do with the pressure by the US government to keep semiconductor manufacturing on US soil. The US government now has a stake in Intel, as does Nvidia.

When O'Buckley was hired in May 2024, then CEO Pat Gelsinger said he would play a "critical role" in helping customers leverage and get the most out of Intel Foundry. So this loss to Qualcomm might sting a bit.

Though Intel shook up its leadership for Foundry Services late last year. Naga Chandrasekaran was put in charge of Foundry Services as an extension of the role as CTOO. This intended to more closely integrate the entire Foundry business. Kevin O'Buckley was, at the time, said to be reporting to Chandrasekaran. So Intel isn't losing its lead for Foundry Services.

Intel has lost a few other key execs in the past 18 months, as a part of a wider shake-up. Notably, long-time Intel spokesperson and CEO of Intel Product, Michelle Johnston Holthaus departed the company. That led to a further change of the top brass, with Jim Johnson taking over the client biz, Kevork Kechichian the datacentre biz, and Chandrasekaran's expanded role previously mentioned.

What's not clear is whether people are jumping ship to presumed greener pastures or finding their roles shifting or changing under the new leadership of Tan. Perhaps a bit of both.

Intel has enjoyed some good press lately with its excellent Panther Lake chip, which is partially manufactured by Intel Foundry on 18A (TSMC still makes some of it), so if it can score someone big for the books, this contract foundry venture might still stand a chance yet.