Intel Names New Advanced Packaging Chief
Intel has reorganized its foundry unit, naming a new executive to lead its packaging business
By Mark LaPedus
Intel has reorganized its foundry unit and appointed a new executive to lead its efforts in the advanced packaging business.
Seok-Hee Lee, formerly president and chief executive of SK On, has been appointed as executive vice president of Intel Foundry, reporting directly to CEO Lip-Bu Tan. In this role, Lee will lead all advanced packaging, system integration, back-end technology development and back-end manufacturing at Intel Foundry.
Lee appears to have assumed the packaging leadership duties from Naga Chandrasekaran, executive vice president of Intel Foundry.
Previously, Chandrasekaran was in charge of the front-end manufacturing operations, packaging and other functions at Intel Foundry. With the changes, Chandrasekaran will continue to lead front-end technology development and manufacturing at Intel Foundry. Chandrasekaran will also continue to oversee design enablement and end-to-end customer-facing and business enablement functions that support Intel Foundry’s growth. He will continue to report to Tan.
All told, Intel Foundry appears to have split its operation into two groups. Chandrasekaran is in charge of the front-end fab duties, while Lee is leading the packaging business. Lee joins Intel from SK On, a global battery and trading company. Lee also served as president and CEO of SK hynix. He has also held engineering leadership roles at Intel and in academia.
The changes were made for several reasons. Intel is establishing advanced packaging as a focused business with dedicated leadership. This reflects the growing importance and complexity of packaging as a key enabler.
“Advanced packaging and system integration are becoming defining capabilities for next-generation computing systems,” Tan said. “Seok-Hee brings deep expertise in leading complex, high-scale technology and manufacturing organizations, along with a strong track record of operational execution. Seok-Hee’s insights will help Intel further strengthen our system integration capabilities, allowing us to tightly couple leading-edge logic, memory, networking, and other components to build high-performance computing systems for Intel Foundry customers.”
As part of the announcement, Intel also shared that executive vice president Navid Shahriari will be retiring after a 37-year career at the company.