Intel has announced its Chief Engineering Officer Murthy Renduchintala will leave the business on August 3 after its 7nm chips will be delayed until at least 2022.

The last few weeks have been nothing short of a nightmare for Intel, after it was forced to announce its next generation 7nm would be delayed by another six months. This delay was on top of an existing shift to expectations, and given the company’s history of falling behind rivals, more could be expected.

Renduchintala leaving the company might be a knee jerk reaction to a nose-dive in share price since the earnings call (-17%) though clearly there was a need for change.

After being poached from Qualcomm in 2016, Renduchintala led all design and manufacturing operations at Intel. This division will now be split into five units;

“I look forward to working directly with these talented and experienced technology leaders, each of whom is committed to driving Intel forward during this period of critical execution,” said CEO Bob Swan.

“I also want to thank Murthy for his leadership in helping Intel transform our technology platform. We have the most diverse portfolio of leadership products in our history and, as a result of our six pillars of innovation and disaggregation strategy, much more flexibility in how we build, package and deliver those products for our customers.”