Samsung Recruits 'Veteran' TSMC, New Strategy To Strengthen Chip Packaging

Samsung recruited Taiwanese Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) veteran Lin Jun-cheng (photo: twitter @SamsungUS)

JAKARTA - Samsung recruited Taiwanese Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) veteran Lin Jun-cheng who was appointed Senior Vice President of the Advanced Packaging Team, part of the Device Solutions division.

A report from the Korea Herald, Jun-cheng's task is most likely centered on the growth of advanced packaging technology, a catalyst for increasing high-performance chipsets.

Jun-cheng himself worked for TSMC for nearly two decades starting in 1999, he played an important role in the development of 3D packaging technology, such as CoWoS and InFO.

Previously, Jun-cheng worked for Micron Technology in the United States (US), a company that specializes in memory semiconductors.

He also served as Head of Skytech, a semiconductor equipment company in Taiwan before joining Samsung.

The momentum of Samsung recruiting Jun-cheng occurred when the company was pouring large enough resources into advanced packaging technology, a field where most of the competition came from TSMC.

Jun-cheng's work on TSMC could help Samsung in this regard, where 3D packaging is very popular among important casting clients such as Nvidia, Apple, AMD, and various HPC specialist companies.

In addition, during his R&D TSMC career, Jun-cheng helped the company secure more than 400 patents.

Despite his reputation as the company that made the first 3nm chip from South Korea, Apple did not choose Samsung, but TSMC to produce the upcoming M3 and A17 Bionic chips.

It should also be noted that the next Qualcomm Snapdragon 7+ Gen 1 will be produced using the 4nm TSMC process, not the 4nm Low Power Early (LPE) Samsung process used for Snapdragon 7 Gen 1 or 8 Gen 1 creation.

Samsung realized, by recruiting Jun-cheng, this is an area where he can do better. Launching Tom's Hardware, Monday, March 13, he is only the latest of a number of talents.

Not only that, Samsung also recruited Kim Woo-pyeong from Apple, recruited as head of the Center for Packaging Solutions in the Device Solutions division. Benny Katibian, a self-driving chip technology expert who previously worked as vice president at Qualcomm, was chosen to help improve Samsung's self-driving technology.

The company also employed Kwon Jung-hyun, a former Nvidia engineer, to conduct robotics research.

According to a new report, Samsung is ready to start mass production of the third generation 4nm chip during the first half of 2023. This is the main casting product in the ultra-micro fabrication process sector.