Samsung engineers are leaving for SK Hynix, jeopardizing AI chip production
Over 200 Samsung engineers have left for rival company SK Hynix in four months. The salary gap is $76,000. Samsung is the only memory maker with a foundry that makes the HBM4 chips used in AI accelerators.
More than 200 engineers have defected from Samsung to rival SK Hynix over the past four months, after being offered bonuses worth up to $476,000 — $76,000 higher than Samsung’s offer. According to recent surveys, 81.5% of Samsung’s foundry division staff are planning to leave, while the division is also making losses.
Samsung is the only memory maker to own a foundry, which is critical for manufacturing HBM4 chips used in AI accelerators. But Samsung has been losing engineers just when its rival SK Hynix is expanding its foundry division to work together with TSMC on developing next-gen chips.
Source: www.technologyreview.com
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Author
Evgenii Arsentev
PhD · Chief Executive Officer, digital health
Articles · Latest articles