Samsung appoints leader for semiconductor division

[Courtesy of Samsung Electronics Co.]

South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co. appointed Jun Young-hyun, vice chairman and head of its future business division, as the new head of its device solutions (DS) division responsible for semiconductors. The surprise reshuffle announced on Tuesday comes as the tech giant’s semiconductor business faces a crisis.

Samsung Electronics said in a statement that the personnel change was made to enhance the competitiveness of its semiconductor business “amid an uncertain global business environment” by introducing new leadership, indicating its intention to overhaul the organization.

It is also determined to innovate technology and refresh the corporate atmosphere under Jun’s leadership to achieve a significant technological lead in semiconductors and strengthen its future competitiveness.

Jun faces several challenges as he steps into the role. The first is to regain the company’s leadership in high bandwidth memory (HBM) amid the artificial intelligence (AI) market’s explosive growth. While Samsung leads the global memory semiconductor market, the rapidly growing HBM market is currently dominated by SK hynix Inc., which has been actively investing in the high-value, high-performance memory for over a decade as opposed to Samsung, which adjusted its pace due to concerns about profitability.

SK hynix has been virtually exclusively supplying its products to Nvidia Corp., the leader in the graphics processing unit (GPU) market. The Korean company has been mass-producing and supplying the 5th generation HBM, HBM3E (8-layer), to Nvidia Since March 2024.

Market research firm TrendForce forecasts that SK hynix will maintain a 52.5 percent share of the global HBM market in 2024, with Samsung following at 42.4 percent.

HBM is highly profitable, typically priced five times higher than standard DRAM. The HBM demand for 2024 is expected to grow at nearly double the previous year’s rate and more than double again in 2025, driven by global big tech companies expanding their AI data center which is leading to increased demand and prices.

It is also projected that HBM will account for 35 percent of advanced process wafer inputs in semiconductor DRAM by the end of 2024, which is why both Samsung and SK hynix are both betting on the high performance memory.

[Graphics by Song Ji-yoon]

The battle for HBM dominance between the two Korean chipmakers is now entering its second round. Samsung, eager to restore its reputation, plans to initiate the latest round with the 5th generation HBM3E 12-layer product. The 12-layer product is significantly more difficult to make as the stacking competition intensifies and requires the use of specialized foundry technology. With its expertise in memory, foundry, and packaging, Samsung is looking for a comeback in the second round.

It announced plans to mass-produce its industry-first HBM3E 12-layer product in the second quarter of 2024. Nvidia Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang visited Samsung‘s booth at Nvidia’s annual developer conference, GTC 2024, In March 2024 and expressed his approval of the company’s HBM3E 12-layer product by writing “JENSEN APPROVED” on the displayed model.

Another crucial factor is the recovery of the foundry business. As major countries like the United States and Japan use subsidies to secure semiconductor supply chains, competitors such as Taiwan‘s Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) and the U.S.’s Intel Corp. are expanding their reach.

Samsung has delayed the mass production of its Taylor plant currently under construction in the United States by one year to 2026 from 2025, as it seeks to strengthen its competitiveness and increase customer engagement in this competitive environment.

The tech giant plans to proceed with Jun’s appointment as an internal director and CEO through to the 2025 regular shareholders‘ meeting and board meeting.

Meanwhile, Kyung Kye-hyun, who stepped down from leading the DS division on Tuesday, is expected to maintain his position as an internal director until the regular shareholders’ meeting and board meeting slated for 2025. He plans to focus on his duties as head of the future business division, and Samsung will operate under the sole CEO leadership of Vice Chairman Han Jong-hee for now.

While the company said that it is not considering any further personnel changes following the replacement of the semiconductor head, it is not ruling out follow-up appointments moving forward as the company formulates strategies to overcome the semiconductor crisis and develop its plans for the future.