Intel has been leaning on PCs for years, watching ruefully as smartphones, tablets and other new technologies sprang up - all without Intel chips. On Tuesday, Intel declared it's letting go of the past in hopes of a brighter future in data centers, wearable computers and other emerging gadgets.

"We are evolving from a PC company to a company that powers the cloud and billions of smart, connected computing devices," chief executive Brian Krzanich declared.

That evolution will test just how far Intel can bend.

Intel's restructuring will be accompanied by the biggest single round of job cuts in its history. It announced Tuesday plans to eliminate 12,000 jobs, 11 percent of its total work force, as it recalibrates following another quarter of disappointing PC sales.

Intel is Oregon's largest private employer, with 19,500 working at campuses in Washington County. The company gave no immediate indication of how the layoffs will be distributed; if applied evenly across the business worldwide, they would eliminate 2,150 Oregon jobs.

Intel said nothing publicly about severance for its outgoing employees, but in past job cuts - including a round of semi-secret layoffs last year - the company has provided employees at least a few months of salary. Laid-off employees often have an opportunity to seek new jobs within the business, a practice Intel calls "redeployment."

The broad reorganization starts immediately, with the process complete by the middle of 2017. It tops a 2006 restructuring that cut 10,000 jobs.

Internal communication to employees obtained by The Oregonian/OregonLive indicated they will know by April 25 if a site is scheduled for closure, and by April 29 if they're slated for layoffs. Within another 60 days, Intel suggested it will have made decisions about project cancellations.

Investor reaction to Intel's moves was muted. Shares fell 2 percent in after-hours trading to $30.96. The stock has traded between $24.87 and $35.59 in the past year.

The Oregonian/OregonLive reported last week the cuts were imminent. Intel, which still relies on PCs for 60 percent of its revenue, acknowledged Tuesday that the long-term decline in the PC market requires the company reconstitute itself as its core market erodes.

"These are not changes we take lightly," Krzanich said. But he said they free up money to invest elsewhere. "Acting now gives us flexibility."

Intel remains a hugely profitable company - its gross profit margins top 60 percent - and on Tuesday it forecast sales growth this year around 5 percent to $58 billion, down only slightly from its prior outlook. Yet Intel spends several billions of dollars every year equipping its factories, including state-of-the art-facilities in Hillsboro, and needs to recoup that money somewhere.

"This is big. Usually you don't see companies cutting 11 percent of the workforce if things are going swimmingly," said Stacy Rasgon, an investment analyst who tracks Intel for Sanford C. Bernstein.

Corporations are holding onto PCs longer and consumers are increasingly spending their cash on smartphones rather than desktops and laptops. But that's only part of Intel's problem.

Circuits on computer chips are shrinking to near atomic scale, and it's becoming more expensive and time consuming for Intel to engineer and produce more advanced circuitry. And it's by no means clear that wearable technolgies and other new concepts will deliver the revenues or profit margins Intel is accustomed to in PCs and data centers, markets where its chips have a near monopoly

Intel said the job cuts will save the company $750 million in 2016 and create savings at an annual rate of $1.4 billion by the middle of next year. Intel will take a one-time accounting charge of $1.2 billion to cover the costs this quarter.

"He (Krzanich) mentioned this will be the highest revenue per employee in their history," Rasgon said. "If you're the employee, life is harder."

As Intel cuts rank-and-file jobs, it's also weathering an upheaval in its executive ranks. Intel hired former Qualcomm executive Venkata "Murthy" Renduchintala last fall to be the company's new president, and announced last week that a pair of top vice presidents who worked for him are leaving.

Extending the overhaul, Intel said Tuesday that longtime chief financial officer Stacy Smith will now lead sales, manufacturing and operations and the company will look for a new CFO. The move to create a brand-new, operational role at the company for Smith appears designed to set him up in a two-person race with Renduchintala to eventually succeed Krzanich.

Intel's "manager ranks and the rank-and-file are too inbred, are too homespun," said Kevin Krewell, principal analyst with Tirias Research in San Jose. Renduchintala's arrival appears to be signaling a new era, he said, when Intel is more open to outside ideas.

In another way, though, Krewell said, Tuesday's overhaul harkens back to Intel's past. He put it in the context of past crises the company has overcome: Its transition from memory chips to microprocessors in the 1980s, for example, and its move to multicore processors a decade ago.

"The company has faced adversity in the past," Krewell said. "They usually come out on top after they've adjusted their strategy."

Note: This is an updated version of the article with additional detail and context.

-- Mike Rogoway

mrogoway@oregonian.com

503-294-7699

@rogoway