SK Hynix Recruiting Internal Personnel for Cheongju Plant
Samsung Electronics Also "Steadily Securing Talent"
Global Latecomers Urgently Seeking Korean Engineers
As demand for High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) has recently increased, the semiconductor industry is focusing on strengthening its competitiveness by reinforcing related personnel and reorganizing its structure.
According to the industry on the 17th, SK Hynix is expected to finalize the scale of personnel dispatched to the Cheongju M15X factory internally within this week, and the personnel are likely to start working there early next month. M15X is an expansion of SK Hynix's existing fab M15 located in Cheongju, Chungbuk, and is planned to focus on HBM production. With a total investment of 5.3 trillion KRW, it is expected to be completed in the fourth quarter of this year and enter full-scale mass production next year.
They have begun reinforcing personnel ahead of completion. Last year in the second half, SK Hynix gathered internal opinions regarding the scale of personnel to be dispatched to M15X and the selection of responsible personnel. Subsequently, they operated an internal Career Growth Program (CGP) to select candidates for dispatch and are currently recruiting the final workforce by adding the necessary personnel. The recruitment fields include HBM design, advanced PKG (package) development, artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure, and customer quality management.
In December last year, SK Hynix also transferred some team leaders and part leaders related to all D-RAM processes working at the Icheon factory to the Cheongju factory. This time, it is interpreted that they have deployed a large number of engineers to begin final preparations.
SK Hynix plans to expand production capacity through M15X and other facilities to respond to increasing demand, and to strengthen design, development, and packaging capabilities to gain an advantage in the next-generation HBM market. In March last year, SK Hynix became the first in the industry to supply HBM3E 8-stack to Nvidia, followed by the world’s first mass production and shipment of HBM3E 12-stack products in the fourth quarter of last year. They plan to supply HBM3E 16-stack products in the first half of this year.
Samsung Electronics also announced plans to expand the proportion of high-value-added memory such as HBM this year. Especially, anticipating that memory demand recovery will accelerate from the second quarter, they plan to mass-produce and supply the improved version of the 5th generation HBM, HBM3E, from the end of the first quarter, and aim to double the total HBM supply compared to the previous year.
Samsung Electronics is actively securing personnel accordingly. A Samsung Electronics official explained, "We are steadily securing personnel and operating related organizations to prepare next-generation products in fields such as HBM."
Global latecomers are also aggressively pursuing the recruitment of Korean engineers. Micron, ranked third in the HBM market, conducted recruitment last month for Korean engineers to work at its Hiroshima factory in Japan. Last year, Micron also recruited Korean engineers specializing in HBM and packaging at its largest D-RAM production base in Taichung, Taiwan, holding recruitment briefings at major domestic universities with conditions such as "same-day hiring (for pre-registered applicants)." Chinese company ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) is also reportedly continuing behind-the-scenes efforts to secure Korean personnel through headhunters and other means.
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