Graphics Chip Designer Bolts Apple to Rejoin AMD

Another chip designer has left Apple for chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices.

According to a report by Anand Lal Shimpi on AnandTech.com, Raja Koduri, who spent the last four years at Apple overseeing its graphics chip work, has rejoined AMD.

The move follows a similar one last year by Jim Keller, who had been Apple’s chip design guru working on its mobile A4, A5 and A6 chips that go inside the iPad and iPhone.

In his last stint at AMD, Koduri (pictured) was CTO for graphics and worked extensively on some of its best graphics products. His new job will be corporate vice president of visual computing, and he’ll be responsible for both the hardware and software sides of AMD’s graphics efforts.

“This is a great hire for AMD,” analyst and former AMD executive Patrick Moorhead told AllThingsD. “Raja did great things when he was at AMD and then played a huge role in making Apple’s mobile graphics the fastest in the industry. It’s also a huge loss for Apple, and it seems to be losing some very good talent these days.”

Koduri has also taken a role with an India-based graphics chips outfit called Makuta VFX as a technical adviser to its board of directors.

Before AMD, Koduri worked at ATI, the Canadian graphics chip company that AMD acquired in 2006, and before that he worked at S3, another graphics chip company.