Former head of Intel's server processor group helped design many of the company's chips Mike Fister, formerly head of Intel Corp.’s server processor group, left the company this week to become president and chief executive officer (CEO) of Cadence Design Systems Inc., Cadence said Wednesday.San Jose, California-based Cadence provides software and services that help chip makers use electronic design automation techniques to manufacture the extremely complex devices that are modern microprocessors. Intel used some of Cadence’s products during Fister’s tenure at the company, he said in a press release.Fister’s title at Intel was senior vice president and general manager of Intel’s Enterprise Platforms Group. He was the public face of the company’s server processor business and had a hand in designing many of the company’s chips since he joined Intel in 1987. Intel’s Xeon server processors changed the way IT managers deployed servers in the late 1990s, as companies began to migrate away from larger and more expensive servers from vendors such as Sun Microsystems Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co. in favor of smaller and cheaper clusters of two-way servers based on Xeon.Fister also presided over the introduction of the Itanium server processor, a 64-bit chip based on a different architecture from the Xeon processor. Itanium was once positioned as the future of Intel’s server business, but the processor has settled into a role as an alternative to high-end RISC (reduced instruction set computing) processors from Sun and IBM Corp.“Mike has made significant contributions throughout his career at Intel and we are sorry to see him leave,” said Intel CEO Craig Barrett in a press release. Abhijit Talwalkar will replace Fister as head of the Enterprise Platforms Group, Intel said in the release. Talwalkar has been with Intel since 1993.Ray Bingham, who was previously CEO of Cadence, has been elected chairman of the board of directors and will relinquish the CEO role to Fister, Cadence said. Bingham will replace outgoing chairman Donald Lucas, who will remain on the board of directors, the company said. Technology Industry