Mac architecture led Jeff Wilcox to misunderstanding at Intel to develop new SoCs

Jeff Wilcox, Apple’s director of Mac system architecture who oversaw much of the transition to Apple Silicon, left Apple to join Intel. He will lead Intel’s efforts to develop its own system-on-a-chip.

He announced the change on LinkedIn over the past few weeks. In his original post on LinkedIn, he wrote:

After an amazing eight years, I decided to leave Apple and take another opportunity. It was an incredible trip and I couldn’t be more proud of everything we accomplished during my time there, culminating in the transition of Apple Silicon with SOC and the M1, M1 Pro and M1 Max systems. I will miss all my colleagues and friends at Apple very much, but I look forward to my next journey starting at the beginning of the year. Not all!

A couple of weeks later, he wrote in a new post:

I am pleased to announce that I have started my new position as an Intel Research Fellow, Technical Director of the Design and Engineering Group, SoC Client Architecture at Intel Corporation. I’m thrilled to be back working with the amazing teams that are helping to build revolutionary SOCs. Great things are ahead!

The move happened very recently. Wilcox joined Intel earlier this month.

This change relates to Apple’s broader history of developing exceptionally efficient chips and Intel’s struggle to keep up. Intel is working on new silicon that it hopes and claims will compete with Apple’s recent advances. Wilcox could be a key leader in advancing these efforts.