AMD gets executive defection from IBM

In the never-ending battle of executives fleeing green pastures for even greener pastures, International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM) has lost one of its own to chipmaking rival Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NYSE:AMD): Douglas Grose -- an IBM vet -- will now be head of manufacturing for AMD as it continues to try and slay one of the larger dragons it's always been after: Intel Corp. (NASDAQ:INTC).

Grose will taking over one of AMD's most crucial executive positions, so this move is no small matter for the future of the chipmaking industry. And why, you may ask? Well, the constant "smaller sizes of making things" in the chipmaking industry is what allows more and more processing power to be stuffed onto smaller and smaller "dies" -- pieces of silicon where all the magical processing inside your PC is done (except for the separate graphics processor).

AMD has had its pitfalls in the chip fabrication business, so has Intel truth be told. Both companies have had foibles over manufacturing in the past that delayed market entrance for certain products as well as opened the door to losing contracts with large customers in some form. Can Grose change that?