Patton previously spent more than a decade in the chip unit at International Business Machines Corp.

Intel, which was known in Silicon Valley for promoting heavily from within, has lured several notable executives from competitors.

These include Jim Keller, who oversees the company's computing chip architectures, and Raja Koduri, who is overseeing graphics chips. Both came from rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc. Intel also hired Chief Engineering Officer Murthy Renduchintala from Qualcomm Inc.

Patton will join Intel as corporate vice president and general manager of design enablement. He will report to Mike Mayberry, Intel's chief technology officer.

Patton is known in the industry for his ability to translate research and development into practice inside chip factories. Eight years of his decade at IBM was spent overseeing the company's 1,600-person semiconductor research and development team, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Intel spokesman Will Moss confirmed the authenticity of the memo but declined to comment beyond it. Patton declined to comment beyond Intel's internal memo. A GlobalFoundries spokeswoman confirmed that Patton had left the company last week but declined to comment further.

(Reporting by Stephen Nellis in San Francisco; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Lisa Shumaker)

By Stephen Nellis

Stocks treated in this article : Intel Corporation, Qualcomm, Advanced Micro Devices