[The Editors' Verdict] Lee Jae-yong's 'Fight or Die' and Lip Butan's 'Engineering First'

The new head of the American semiconductor company Intel, CEO Lip Butan, is known in the industry as a ‘Semiconductor Titan.’ The nickname seems to play on the rhyme with his surname ‘Tan’ and the word ‘Titan,’ but considering his achievements in the semiconductor industry, this nickname is by no means an exaggeration.

He earned the title of ‘Semiconductor Titan’ when he became CEO of Cadence Design Systems, a semiconductor design company, in 2009. Cadence is a U.S.-based computer software company whose main business includes the design of integrated circuits (IC), system-on-chip (SoC), and printed circuit boards (PCB). When CEO Tan took office, the company was on the verge of delisting.

After CEO Tan started working at Cadence, the first thing he addressed was changing the organizational culture. He then introduced new businesses such as cloud services and began attracting major clients like Apple. He worked there until 2021, during which the company’s stock price rose more than 3000% from the brink of delisting. According to the U.S. Wall Street Journal (WSJ), Morris Chang, chairman of Taiwan’s TSMC, once said at a seminar in 2016 that "he saved Cadence from crisis," referring to CEO Tan.

CEO Tan’s capabilities, recognized by semiconductor experts, lie in transforming the company into a technology-centered organization while restructuring. Before joining Cadence, he had experience investing in startups and running multinational venture companies, earning a reputation for having a startup mindset. His strategy was to reduce the organization’s size to enable faster decision-making and then attract customers through new business ventures.

His past CEO track record is drawing attention because he is likely to adopt a similar approach at Intel, which he now leads. Intel, once dominant in central processing units (CPU), lost its presence after re-entering the foundry (semiconductor contract manufacturing) market in 2021. Recently, it has been facing even more severe crises. According to market research firm TrendForce, Intel’s market share in the global foundry market was outside the top 10 in the fourth quarter of last year.

CEO Tan has set Intel’s goal as becoming an ‘Engineering First’ company, aiming to achieve this within a year. In a memo to employees, he encouraged change by saying, "We must find new ways to speed up."

Shortly after CEO Tan’s appointment, Intel announced plans to mass-produce CPUs using a 1.8-nanometer (nm) process?surpassing TSMC’s 2nm process?starting early next year. This reflects their determination to compete through technology following workforce restructuring.

Intel’s transformation also affects Samsung Electronics, a competitor in the foundry market. Both companies currently share a difficult situation. Samsung Electronics is struggling not only in foundry but also in memory. However, if one side grows through technological leadership, the other side inevitably shrinks relatively.

CEO Tan’s ‘Engineering First’ goal aligns with recent messages from Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong. At a recent executive seminar, Lee delivered a strong message of ‘fight or die,’ emphasizing, "First is technology, second is technology, third is technology." He stressed that technology is the only weapon to win in competition.

He pledged to achieve the goal within a year. The speed of restoring Samsung Electronics’ technological prowess, represented by the ‘super-gap’ strategy, must also accelerate.