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| Lee Jae-yong, third from right, chairman of Samsung Electronics, inspects the company's semiconductor packaging line in Cheonan, South Chungcheong Province, Feb. 17. Courtesy of Samsung Electronics |
By Baek Byung-yeul
Samsung Electronics is recruiting key workers from its rivals and top tech companies around the world, such as TSMC, Apple and Qualcomm, seeking to take the lead in the tech industry, according to the Korean electronics company and industry officials, Thursday.
Samsung, which is trying to bolster its presence in the chip foundry business, recently recruited former TSMC engineer Lin Jing-Cheng as its executive vice president. Spending 19 years at TSMC, the global leader in the semiconductor foundry business, Lin is a specialist in the chip packaging business.
A Samsung spokesman said, "The company hired him recently."
The move is aimed at accelerating the development of advanced back-end processes in which Samsung is actively investing. The back-end process refers to the cutting and packaging of circuits and testing of chip performance and reliability.
The back-end process is becoming more important due to the growing movement in the industry to improve chip performance by advancing the cutting and packaging of circuits and testing of chip performance and reliability, as developments in the production of chips at the micro level have slowed down.
In line with the move, Samsung Chairman Lee Jae-yong visited a plant in Cheonan, South Chungcheong Province in February to check the company's capabilities in next-generation semiconductor packaging technologies. There, the chairman emphasized the importance of nurturing experts and investing in future technologies to continue to retain its leadership in the semiconductor business.
"His recruitment can be interpreted as a move by Samsung, the number two player in the foundry business, to strengthen its packaging business by recruiting talent who had worked in the Taiwanese company for a long time," an official in the chip industry said on condition of anonymity.
The company has been struggling with an unfavorable environment, but has recruited prominent experts from top tech firms.
In 2022, Samsung appointed Kim Woo-pyeong from Apple as the head of its Packaging Solution Center at Device Solution America.
To further improve its capability in self-driving technology, Samsung also recruited self-driving chip expert Benny Katibian, who worked for Qualcomm, at the end of 2022. Last month, Samsung Research, an R&D unit of Samsung Electronics, also recruited former Nvidia engineer Kwon Jung-hyun for research in robotics.
"It's a natural thing that happens commonly in the semiconductor industry or ICT industry. If there is anything a company is behind, the company is trying to strengthen the field by bringing in talents from the best companies in the sector," the industry official added.
