Jim Keller (engineer)

Lore & Background

Jim Keller was born in New Jersey as the second of six children. His father worked at General Electric Aerospace as a mechanical engineer, and his mother was a stay-at-home mother during his childhood then became a therapist later in life. He graduated from Pennsylvania State University in 1980 with a B.S. in electrical engineering. He joined DEC in 1982 and worked there until 1998, involved in designing the VAX 8800, Alpha 21164, and Alpha 21264 processors. Prior to DEC, he had worked at Harris Corporation on microprocessor boards. In 1998, he moved to AMD, where he worked to launch the AMD Athlon (K7) processor and was the lead architect of the AMD K8 microarchitecture, which also included designing the x86-64 instruction set and HyperTransport interconnect. In 1999, he left AMD to work at SiByte to design MIPS-based processors for 1 Gbit/s network interfaces. In November 2000 SiByte was acquired by Broadcom, where he continued as chief architect until 2004. In 2004, he moved to serve as the Vice President of Engineering at P.A. Semi, a company specializing in low-power mobile processors. In early 2008 Keller moved to Apple; P.A. Semi was acquired by Apple shortly afterwards, reuniting Keller with his prior team. The new team worked to design the Apple A4 and A5 system-on-a-chip mobile processors, used in iPhone 4, 4S, iPad, and iPad 2. In August 2012, Keller returned to AMD, where his primary task was to lead development of new generations of x86-64 and ARM microarchitectures called Zen and K12. After years of being unable to compete with Intel in the high-end CPU market, AMD restored its ability to do just that with the new generation of Zen processors. On September 18, 2015, Keller left AMD. In January 2016, he joined Tesla as Vice President of Autopilot Hardware Engineering. In April 2018, he joined Intel as Senior Vice President, resigning in June 2020, officially citing personal reasons, though a later report said his departure was catalyzed by a dispute about whether the company should outsource more of its production. He joined AI chip startup Tenstorrent as CTO in December 2020 and became its CEO in January 2023. In 2023, Keller and Sam Zeloof founded Atomic Semi, a foundry tools company that aims to design and manufacture low-cost small scale fabrication equipment.

Reader's Guide

Jim Keller's significance stems from his role as lead architect of the AMD K8 microarchitecture, which included the original Athlon 64 and the coauthoring of the x86-64 instruction set and HyperTransport interconnect. These technologies enabled AMD to compete in the high-end CPU market and established 64-bit computing in the x86 ecosystem. His work at Apple on the A4 and A5 processors powered key products like the iPhone 4 and iPad. At AMD, his return led to the development of the Zen microarchitecture, which restored AMD's ability to compete with Intel after years of inability to do so. His career spans multiple influential companies, including DEC, where he worked on the Alpha processors, and Tesla, where he was Vice President of Autopilot Hardware Engineering. His later roles at Intel and as CEO of Tenstorrent reflect ongoing involvement in processor and AI chip design. The founding of Atomic Semi with Sam Zeloof in 2023 aims to produce low-cost small scale fabrication equipment.

Did You Know?

• He coauthored the specifications for the x86-64 instruction set and HyperTransport interconnect.
• His wife Bonnie is the sister of Canadian author and clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson.