Talent poaching Archives - Gizmochina

Samsung poaches Apple chip specialist to allegedly work on Galaxy exclusive SoCs

Sudhanshu — Mon, 25 Jul 2022 19:05:15 +0000

Earlier this year, Samsung launched the highly anticipated Galaxy S22 series of smartphones that debuted with Samsung’s in-house Exynos 2200 chipsets in select regions. The chips feature AMD GPUs and were hyped up quite a bit ahead of launch. However, when the devices finally hit the market, the Exynos 2200 failed to meet the performance expectations of customers.

Currently, Samsung manufactures its Exynos chips to utilize in its own smartphones as well as to sell the chips to other smartphone manufacturers like Google and Xiaomi. However, recent reports have revealed that the company will soon be taking the Apple approach and designing chips exclusively for its own smartphones.

The revamped chips are expected to be ready around 2025. To allegedly help with these efforts, Samsung has appointed ex-Apple employee Kim Woo-pyeong as the director of the recently established Packaging Solution Center which is in the Device Solution America (DSA) headquarters. Kim Woo-pyeong has worked at Texas Instruments and Qualcomm before moving to Apple in 2014 and working there for 9 years.

The report by Business Korea does not specifically mention that Kim will work on the Exynos mobile chipset, however, the report does mention packaging technologies, which are employed by chip makers to overcome SoC integration challenges.

Taiwan cracksdown on Chinese firms that were allegedly poaching chip engineers

Sudhanshu — Thu, 26 May 2022 11:55:49 +0000

After multiple sanctions from the US barring Chinese tech giants like Huawei from accessing advanced semi-conductors from manufacturers like TSMC, China has started heavily investing in domestic solutions for its semi-conductor needs.

Now, in a recent development, Taiwan authorities have raided ten Chinese companies suspected of illegally poaching chip engineers and other tech talents (via Reuters). Taiwan, which is the home to the world’s largest manufacturer of advanced semi-conductor, TSMC, has recently been proactive in countering illegal poaching efforts by Chinese companies that might threaten Tawain’s global semiconductor dominance.

The Investigation Bureau said it raided ten Chinese companies or their R&D centers which operate in Taiwan without approval earlier this week. It said nearly 70 people have been summoned for questioning in a joint crackdown across several cities including the capital Taipei and the island’s semiconductor hub, Hsinchu.

The bureau has issued a statement saying “The illegal poaching of Taiwan’s high-tech talent by Chinese companies has badly impacted our international competitiveness and endangered our national security,” the bureau added that technology is vital to Taiwan’s security and has urged people to “stay high on alert” for such Chinese activities.

The companies currently under investigation have not been named, but the bureau has informed that it includes integrated circuit design firms and electronics parts makers.