Intel today said that company board chairman and former leader Craig Barrett will retire from the chipmaking firm at the company's next yearly shareholders meeting in May. The executive doesn't provide a reason for the exit but has been at Intel for about 35 years and was its chief executive between 1998 and 2005, guiding the company through the Pentium III and IV eras as well as its first mobile-specific processor, the Pentium M.

Existing board member Jane Shaw is set to take over from Barrett as chairman of the board in the spring but won't take on any additional roles at the company as part of the shift.

Barrett's successor in the CEO position, Paul Otellini, is mostly credited with the current move towards mobile processors at Intel and has overseen the initial stages of rolling out the Atom Core architectures as well as this past fall's launch of i7.