On the eve of the launch of the Radeon 7700, Eric Demers, AMD’s Chief Technical Officer Graphics, has left the company.

According to reports from Bright Side of the News, Mr. Demers left AMD unexpectedly without notice. BSN* claims that Mr. Demers’ departure has to do with simmering hostilities left over from a management dispute from late last year.

CTO Mark Papermaster, who recently joined the company, will assume Mr. Demers’ responsibilities in the interim.

Executive departures from AMD became something of a pattern last year as both Rick Bergman, general manager of AMD’s Products Group, and Chief Executive Officer Dirk Meyer resigned with little notice.

In a statement, AMD said that Mr. Demers had left the company to “pursue other opportunities”.

“AMD remains fully committed to our critical graphics IP development and discrete GPU products.  We have a tremendous depth of talent in our organization, a game plan that is resonating with our customers and our team, and we are continuing to bring graphics-performance-leading products to market.  We will attract the right technology leader for this role,” the company said.