Intel has a memory veteran back on the payroll, and its chief executive is dropping hints about why. Seok-Hee Lee, who once ran SK Hynix, joined the company recently as Lip-Bu Tan weighs a return to a market Intel exited in 2021.
On the TechSurge podcast, Tan said his old advice about avoiding memory no longer holds. A wave of new technology and fresh architectures have changed the picture, he explained, and hiring Lee is part of exploring what comes next. “We are not ready to unfold it,” he said.
One avenue under discussion is stacking memory directly on top of CPUs. Tan said the two could be combined in ways that create room for new memory designs, an area he described as ripe for innovation.
Intel’s patent work hints at the direction. A separate joint research program called Saimemory, run with Japanese partners, is exploring Z-angle memory, while a filing from December 2024 describes a cross-batch memory design with backend transistors that would replace the silicon interposer HBM uses today.
The overtures mark a notable shift for a company that sold its NAND unit to SK Hynix and rebuilt itself around foundry services and AI accelerators. Tan stressed that any memory comeback remains a pet project for now.
