Samsung has reportedly hired a veteran semiconductor engineer who worked for its foundry arch-rival TSMC for almost two decades. Lin Jun-cheng will serve the Korean firm as the senior vice president of the advanced semiconductor packaging team. He will oversee the development of cutting-edge packaging technology.
According to the Korean media, Lin is an expert in semiconductor packaging. He has an experience of more than 20 years in this field. He worked for TSMC from 1999 to 2017 and is credited to have played a pivotal role in laying the groundwork for 3D packaging technology, something the Taiwanese firm currently excels at. Lin and orchestrated the company’s applications for more than 450 patents in the US.
Before joining TSMC in 1999, Lin worked for Micron Technology, a Utah-based semiconductor firm that specializes in memory chips. And after leaving the Taiwanese company in 2017, he joined Taiwanese semiconductor equipment maker Skytech as the new CEO. He accumulated further experience in the field of packaging equipment there. The veteran engineer is now bringing this treasure of knowledge and experience to Samsung, which has been exploring ways to get its semiconductor business on track lately.
Samsung hires a veteran semiconductor engineer
Samsung’s semiconductor efforts haven’t been bearing the desired fruits lately. Over the past few months, the company has lost several major clients to TSMC in the foundry sector. Qualcomm, Tesla, and many others have switched to the Taiwanese firm for the manufacturing of their future chipsets. Even its mobile division has ditched its flagship Exynos processors in favor of TSMC-made Snapdragon chipsets.
The Korean behemoth is now trying to resurrect its degrading reputation by making strategic investments across the semiconductor business. It has erected a new factory in Texas, US to expand its production capacity. Samsung also switched from the FinFET chip fabrication process to the GAAFET process for its 3nm chips. Packaging technology is critical to the overall performance of semiconductors. The company is giving thoughtful importance to this part of the business as well.
Last year, Samsung formed a new task force for the development of advanced packaging solutions under the watchful eyes of co-CEO Kyung Kye-hyun. Now known as the Advanced Packaging Business Team, this team is currently led by vice president Kang Moon-soo. Lin Jun-cheng has now joined in as another experienced leader. Samsung also recently hired Kim Woo-pyung from Apple to lead its US Packaging Solution Center and a senior developer from AMD to oversee the development of custom CPUs.