US Micron Recruits Former TSMC Chairman to Board... Strategic Move for 'HBM4' Response

Mark Liu, Former TSMC Chairman, Joins Micron
Over 30 Years at TSMC... Key Figure in Foundry Leadership
Micron CEO: "Great Help Expected"
Foundry Process to Be Applied to 'Logic Die' Starting with HBM4
Micron Also Needs Essential Cooperation with TSMC

Micron, the 'third player' in the high-bandwidth memory (HBM) market, has appointed former TSMC chairman Mark Liu (Ryu De-in) to its board of directors. This move is interpreted as an effort to strengthen cooperation with TSMC and rapidly catch up with SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics, which are leading the HBM market.

Micron's HBM3E

According to industry sources on the 6th, Micron announced on its website on the 5th (local time) that it had appointed Mark Liu, former chairman of TSMC, to its board of directors.

Former chairman Liu served as president and co-CEO of TSMC from 2013 to 2018 and held the chairman position until last year, leading TSMC for over 30 years. His contributions are credited with elevating TSMC to the status of the world's largest foundry (semiconductor contract manufacturing) company.

Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra expressed high expectations, stating, "In leveraging AI-driven growth opportunities from data centers to the edge and expanding our business, former chairman Liu's experience will be a great help in leading Micron."

Micron's move to strengthen cooperation with TSMC appears to be aimed at enhancing the capabilities of its upcoming custom product, 'HBM4 (6th generation)'. TSMC connects HBM received from memory companies to NVIDIA graphics processing units (GPUs) to create AI accelerators.

Notably, starting with HBM4, the foundry process is applied to the logic die, which acts as the brain of HBM. Since SK Hynix and Micron do not possess their own foundry capabilities, cooperation with TSMC is considered essential. SK Hynix has already established a 'one-team' system with TSMC, targeting the development and mass production of HBM4 products in the second half of this year.

Currently, Micron supplies NVIDIA with HBM3E 8-stack products, ranking second after SK Hynix, and has set a goal to mass-produce HBM4 products within two years.

There is also an interpretation that the U.S. government may have influenced Micron's decision. The Trump administration has been fully committed to expanding semiconductor manufacturing capabilities based on America-first policies. Recently, the U.S. government even pressured TSMC to 'save Intel.'