Samsung's System LSI department "Great Leap Forward", plans to expand enrollment by 6,000 people in five years

The System LSI division is trying to challenge Qualcomm and Sony's industry status in system semiconductors such as application processors (AP) and image sensors by recruiting a large number of talents in the field of chip design. System semiconductors are an area that Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong directly ordered to expand capabilities so that Samsung Electronics can leap to become the "world's number one integrated semiconductor company" by 2030.

On December 14, people in the semiconductor industry said that the System LSI division of Samsung Electronics plans to expand the number of employees from the current 9,000 to 15,000, focusing on strengthening human resources for semiconductor design and R&D. It is reported that Park Yong-in, director (president) of the System LSI department of Samsung Electronics, is currently formulating a roadmap for chip design talents and formulating a talent recruitment plan.

Lee Jae-yong has always had great expectations for the system semiconductor field, but Samsung Electronics' system semiconductor business is not satisfactory. There is still a large gap between Samsung Electronics' AP and image sensor market share and the industry's first, and the AP market share has also declined.

According to the semi-annual report of Samsung Electronics, as of the first half of last year, the number of employees in the DS department was 67,954, and the number of employees in the System LSI department was about 9,000, accounting for about 10%. The memory department has the largest number of employees, about 40,000, accounting for about 60%, and the foundry department has about 10,000 employees.

According to Strategy Analytics data, Samsung Electronics’ mobile AP shipments fell 46% year-on-year in the second quarter. As of the first half of the year, the image sensor market share was 30%, and the gap with Sony (44%) was more than 10 percentage points.

The semiconductor industry has been short of people for a long time, and the number of chip design experts is limited. It is not easy to ensure an increase of more than 1,000 people every year.

Lee Jong-hwan, a professor of system semiconductor engineering at Sangmyung University, said that Samsung Electronics needs doctor-level talents, but South Korea does not have many human resource reserves. It takes a long time to cultivate semiconductor talents, and many outstanding people have gone abroad.