Ex-AMD CTO Raja Koduri returns from 4-year Apple job

This week the man known as Raja Koduri has returned to a position with GPU company AMD from a 4-year appointment with Apple. So this former AMD CTO left to work with Apple four years ago, has worked there ever since (with the likes of some of the top minds on the GPU industry), and is now back to work with AMD. And this isn't the only former AMD employee to jump back aboard!

It's not often that we see a major company like Apple losing employees in the first place, much less to a company where they'd hired them from in the first place. But there it is: Raja Koduri has re-joined AMD as Corporate Vice President of Visual Computing. This title also lets us know that AMD is entering a new era: this is the first time they've combined GPU hardware and software under a single title.

Last year AMD also re-hired (read: snatched back) a former employee of theirs from Apple in CPU man Jim Keller. If you have a peek back at SlashGear's original report on Jim Keller, you'll see that such a switch is always a news bit in and of itself. Both Keller and Koduri working for AMD once again doesn't necessarily spell anything really negative for Apple, but for AMD things are certainly looking up.

Speaking with Anand Lal Shimpi this week on his return, Koduri made it clear that he sees AMD as having challenges in the near future, but not challenges that will be insurmountable. It's likely that some real System-on-chip results will be coming out of this new appointment.

Have a peek at our AMD tag portal to see how AMD is rolling in to 2013 with some real power in both the GPU and CPU universes, and expect some strong moves from the company in the next few years as well!