
Barratt is a longtime semiconductor executive and entrepreneur with more than three decades of experience spanning wireless connectivity and networking silicon while working at Intel and Qualcomm. Over the course of his career, he has worked across both startups and major technology companies and has plenty of experience in leading engineering-centric organizations and bringing complex silicon products to market.
Barratt is best known for leading Atheros Communications, a leading supplier of Wi-Fi processors for PCs, networking gear, and consumer electronics. Under his leadership, the firm expanded rapidly during the early wireless-networking boom, went public in 2004, and was eventually acquired by Qualcomm for roughly $3.1 billion. Following the acquisition, Craig H. Barratt served as president of Qualcomm Atheros, where he was in charge of connectivity silicon used in a wide range of devices from smartphones and PCs to routers and switches.
After leaving Qualcomm, Craig H. Barratt worked as Senior Vice President, Access and Energy, at Google from 2012 until 2017. Later on, he briefly led Barefoot Networks, a startup developing programmable Ethernet switching processors aimed at gamers that Intel acquired in 2019, and afterward oversaw Intel's Ethernet and networking businesses that were part of Intel's Data Platforms Group.
Barratt returned to Intel in November 2025 by joining the board as an independent director. Barratt serves as a director at companies such as Astera Labs and Intuitive Surgical, which provide him exposure to both data center infrastructure and advanced robotics systems.
Get Tom's Hardware's best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox.
Key considerations
- Investor positioning can change fast
- Volatility remains possible near catalysts
- Macro rates and liquidity can dominate flows
Reference reading
- https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/cpus/SPONSORED_LINK_URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/cpus/intel-chairman-frank-yeary-retires-craig-barrat-to-become-the-new-chairman-of-the-board-of-directors#main
- https://www.tomshardware.com
- For under $1000, land the fastest gaming CPU, motherboard, and 32GB of RAM — AMD's Ryzen 7 9850X3D, MSI MAG X870, and Corsair Vengeance RAM saves you $196 in to
- Arm's $250 million deal with Malaysia probed by anti-corruption authorities — $1.27 million seized from safehouse of prominent politician, former army chief arr
- Nintendo Switch 2 users buying fewer games because of AI storage crisis, report claims — game demand under threat as titles get bigger and storage gets more exp
- China's top chip execs claim ASML alternative 'small, fragmented, and weak' — Chinese industry titans call for national effort to invest in advanced chipmaking
- AI creates jobs, data from bank survey shows — companies with wide AI deployments and investments are more likely to be hiring than those that don't
Informational only. No financial advice. Do your own research.