AMD has hired two senior engineers with experience at Qualcomm and Apple as the company is trying to diversify beyond the PC industry.

The news was reported by Reuters first and was also confirmed by AMD.

AMD hired Charles Matar, who has expertise in low-power and embedded chip design, joined as AMD's vice president of System-on-Chip Development. Matar most recently worked at Qualcomm.

Wayne Meretsky, who has worked at Apple on processors used in the iPad and iPhone, was named vice president, software IP development. Meretsky will lead software developments for AMD's chips.

AMD is rushing to expand into new markets for its chip processors and graphics technology. The company hopes to increase sales in markets such as communications, microservers, digital signs and slim client computers.

AMD also plans to ship the Temash low power processor for tablets and hybrid laptops in the first half of this year.

The Kabini laptop processor is also planned for early 2013 and will have 50 percent better performance than its predecessor, according to AMD.