Chipmaker Xilinx is parting ways with CFO Lorenzo Flores as it transitions into a supplier of processing platforms for data centers.
Xilinx shares fell 1.6% in extended trading Thursday after the company announced Flores, who has served as finance chief since 2016, was stepping down to “pursue another executive opportunity.” On Friday, Toshiba Memory Co., which is scheduled to rebrand itself as Kioxia Holdings, announced that Flores will be joining the company as vice chairman.
While Xilinx conducts a search for his successor, CEO Victor Peng will provide oversight of finance operations. As CFO, Flores “has been integral to our efforts to grow our business and execute on our transition to a platform company,” Peng said in a news release.
Flores earned more than $2.2 million in compensation in fiscal 2019. He joined Xilinx in 2009 as vice president of finance and corporate controller after working in management positions for three tech companies — Cognizant Technology Solutions, UXComm, and Intel.
“Xilinx is extremely well-positioned in the industry and I am highly confident that the broad strength of the organization and management will ensure its continued success,” he said.
Xilinx’s push into the growing market for data center chips revolves around a range of new platform products, including the adaptive compute acceleration platform (ACAP), that, according to ZDNet, “takes its capabilities beyond the so-called field-programmable gate array [chips] it has sold for decades.”
While the data center business accounted for only $232 million of Xilinx’s $3.1 billion in sales for the year ended in March, it is the fastest-growing segment, rising 46% last year.
The platform chips “still possess programmable logic gates but also integrate several functional elements that are more particular to a task, such as machine learning, all on a single silicon die,” ZDNet said.
Flores plans to leave Xilinx after the release of its second-quarter earnings on Oct. 23. .