Samsung’s chip workers are jumping ship to rival SK Hynix
Lee, an engineer at Samsung’s semiconductor division, clocks out when his shift ends. He used to work longer hours, going the additional mile to excel at his tasks. However currently, he’s been coming straight house to work on his job software for the chipmaker’s South Korean rival SK Hynix, sharing suggestions along with his coworkers on how you can draft a stellar private assertion. Even his boss encourages him to make the transfer.
“My workforce lead tells us all to leap ship to SK Hynix,” says Lee. He and his coworkers are feeling demoralized by the $476,000 bonus that SK Hynix is about to pay its workers, flush with record profits from making the high-bandwidth reminiscence (HBM) chips that energy Nvidia’s AI accelerators. The determine dwarfs what chip staff at Samsung are set to obtain and is sparking an exodus.
Because the AI increase heats up, the semiconductor titans are waging a fierce expertise conflict with flashy bonuses, aggressive recruiting, and even a courtroom injunction. Who wins may tilt the race to dominate the subsequent technology of the HBM chips on the coronary heart of the AI increase.
“Apart from our two workforce leads, my total workforce [of 30 people] simply utilized to SK Hynix,” Lee says, referring to a job posting the corporate revealed in July. Lee, who has labored at Samsung for 3 years, even utilized for an entry-level place at its rival. A coworker, who has labored at Samsung for eight years, utilized for a similar one. They each bought rejected. However they’re hopeful that they’ll get a callback for a posting looking for a extra skilled engineer.
All workers at Samsung and SK Hynix that MIT Expertise Evaluate spoke with requested to be recognized by simply their final identify or a pseudonym as a result of they feared retaliation from their employer. Samsung declined to remark, and SK Hynix didn’t reply to requests for remark.
After extended negotiations with its labor union, Samsung struck a deal in Could to pay out 10.5% of the semiconductor division’s working earnings to workers as bonuses yearly for 10 years, principally in firm inventory that vests over three years. The transfer got here after SK Hynix agreed final 12 months to pay out 10% of working earnings to workers, which interprets to $476,000 per worker this 12 months—principally in money.
However at Samsung, every division’s bonus is tied to its personal backside line. Chip staff in its reminiscence division, which can be reaping a windfall from making HBM chips, are getting paid a bonus of roughly $400,000 per worker this 12 months. However those that, like Lee, work in Samsung’s foundry division, which manufactures logic chips that firms like Tesla and Google design and has been working at a loss, are getting a bonus of roughly $135,000.
Workers instructed MIT Expertise Evaluate that Samsung mentioned it may possibly’t give as many bonuses to divisions that aren’t performing properly. Lee, after watching the labor union wrestle with the corporate for months, says he has felt disenchanted by what he ended up with: “Even when Samsung does properly sooner or later, I don’t assume any of it should trickle right down to me.”
The employees’ lagging bonuses are making SK Hynix instantly look interesting. In line with a survey by the Samsung labor union in June, 81.5% of workers within the firm’s foundry division, and almost half of workers within the semiconductor division as an entire, mentioned they needed to go to a different firm within the subsequent two years. In April, Samsung labor union chief Choi Seung-ho said greater than 200 members of the union had left for SK Hynix over the previous 4 months. On Blind, an nameless office discussion board, a refrain of disgruntled engineers at Samsung confess that they wish to defect to SK Hynix for the larger bonuses.
For many years, SK Hynix lived in Samsung’s shadow. It was the smaller, scrappier reminiscence maker that elite engineering college students at universities appeared previous when making use of for jobs. However in 2019, Samsung downsized its HBM workforce, betting the market would keep area of interest, whereas SK Hynix doubled down on the expertise. Then the AI increase supercharged the demand for HBMs, which feed AI chips the large quantities of knowledge they want at ultra-high velocity, driving costs to unprecedented ranges. SK Hynix now leads the worldwide marketplace for HBMs, whereas Samsung is taking part in catch-up. Each firms topped $1 trillion in market worth in Could, and SK Hynix briefly dethroned Samsung as South Korea’s most respected firm in June.
Predicting that demand for reminiscence chips will continue to surge, the semiconductor titans are making aggressive investments to broaden their enterprise. Final month, the businesses unveiled plans to speculate greater than $2 trillion by 2040, together with a semiconductor “mega-cluster” in Yongin, a metropolis south of Seoul. To workers the enlargement, SK Hynix added 2,152 employees within the first half of 2026 alone and goals to double its manufacturing capability in 5 years. Samsung plans to hire 60,000 workers over the subsequent 5 years, particularly for its semiconductor division. Even so, the pipeline will fall quick: South Korea’s semiconductor business will want about 304,000 staff by 2031 and faces a scarcity of roughly 54,000, based on the Korea Semiconductor Trade Affiliation.
Now the longtime rivals are showering staff with massive bonuses to maintain—and poach—expertise. “[SK Hynix] appears to focus on Samsung engineers when hiring as a result of it’s a rival,” says Baek, a supervisor at SK Hynix. “From what I heard internally, the massive efficiency bonuses we bought have been aimed toward luring away expertise from our competitor.”
Courts are beginning to weigh in. In July, Samsung received an injunction barring two former chip staff from working at SK Hynix for 18 months, on the grounds that chips are a nationwide core expertise deserving safety. “With competitors within the semiconductor business fierce, it’s obligatory to determine a good market order,” the courtroom dominated.
The expertise exodus threatens a vital benefit that Samsung nonetheless holds within the HBM race. “Samsung is the one reminiscence maker on the earth that owns a foundry enterprise,” says Park Jun-young, a semiconductor skilled on the Industrial Anthropology Laboratory, a analysis institute, who labored at Samsung for a decade.
With the most recent technology of the expertise, often known as HBM4, the logic chip on the base of every reminiscence stack have to be manufactured with the sort of superior course of that solely foundries run. Samsung can do that in-house, whereas SK Hynix outsources it to the Taiwanese foundry large TSMC. “If Samsung retains dropping engineers within the foundry … the collaboration between reminiscence division and foundry division may change into tough,” says Park. “SK Hynix, which used to have solely a reminiscence workforce and is now hiring foundry engineers, may do higher analysis on HBMs.”
Choi, an engineer who has labored at Samsung for seven years, says he was as soon as a star on his workforce, getting glowing efficiency evaluations from his managers. However currently, he and his coworkers have been busy making use of for each SK Hynix job posting they see. “We inform one another when the subsequent SK Hynix job posting is up,” he says. “There’s all the time extra work to do past our fundamental duties. However there’s no level in doing it.”
