Warren East is stepping down from the top position at ARM Holdings (ARMH) after leading the British company to become the world’s premiere architect of processors for mobile devices. Simon Segars, head of ARM’s American operation, will replace East in July.
“I have worked with Simon in the senior leadership team for many years and we share a global perspective and belief in the ARM approach to partnership and collaboration; he is an excellent choice to lead ARM,” said East in a statement. East, age 51, did not comment on his reasons for leaving ARM at this time.
There is no doubt that East has had a successful run at ARM. He saw the opportunity for the company’s chips in mobile devices, which require more energy efficient chips than do personal computers and servers. While Intel’s x86 architecture has long dominated the computer industry, it was not as appropriate for mobile devices, and ARM seized that opportunity. The company does not design or manufacture chips; it licenses its architecture to semiconductor companies like Qualcomm and Nvidia. ARM says it has received royalties for more than 40 billion ARM-based chips during the 19 years East has been with the company. 9 billion of those chips were made last year, evidence of the company’s recent momentum.
Now ARM is hoping its success with mobile devices could launch its chipsets into other markets, like wireless infrastructure and servers. “A new CEO could have a fresher look as they move out to the server side and infrastructure side,” said analyst Francis Sideco of IHS iSuppli. Sideco said he was not too surprised by news of East’s upcoming departure. “Warren has been there for a good long time and it’s time to move ahead,” he said.
Sideco thinks that ARM has all the elements in place to move into other markets, and that the company’s success will depend on execution. “The key will be understanding what the target companies are doing and designing the chips in that way,” he said. He said ARM’s power-efficient architectures are a natural fit for small cell deployments and for green technologies that value power saving solutions.
East’s impending departure means that ARM and Intel will both be getting new CEOs this year. Even before today’s news, some analysts speculated that Intel’s impending change in leadership could open a door for the world’s largest semiconductor company to license its archrival’s technology and combine Intel’s manufacturing expertise with ARM’s architecture. But Intel has made big strides in mobile chips recently, and seems fully prepared to go it alone in the mobile device arena.
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