Samsung Electronics has replaced the head of its semiconductor division, in a bid to address a "chip crisis," as the world's largest memory chipmaker struggles to keep up in the booming artificial intelligence (AI) chip market, the media has reported. The South Korean tech major announced on Tuesday that it has appointed Young Hyun Jun as the new head of its semiconductor division, effective immediately. Jun previously led the future business planning unit, says a report by news agency Reuters.
Jun, 63, led Samsung's memory chip business from 2014 to 2017, focusing on the development of DRAM and flash memory chips. He also served as CEO of Samsung SDI, the battery division, from 2017 to 2022, where he oversaw a US electric vehicle battery joint venture (JV) with automaker Stellantis.
According to analysts, the move aims to help Samsung catch up in the high-end chip market for artificial intelligence, particularly with high bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, where it has lagged behind competitors like SK Hynix, the Reuters report added.
According to data providing agency TrendForce, Samsung held a 45.5 per cent market share in DRAM chips used in tech devices in the fourth quarter (Q4) of 2023. However, it lags in the niche yet increasingly crucial HBM chips segment, where its rival SK Hynix dominates, controlling more than 90 per cent of the mainstream HBM3 market.
Also read: Apple iPhone SE 4 Price Tipped. OLED Display More Expected Features
"The chip division has been lagging in competitiveness on various fronts, on high-density DRAM, its NAND products are no longer ahead of competition, and in foundry compared to TSMC," analyst Lee Min-hee at BNK Investment & Securities, referring to Taiwan's TSMC, the world's top contract chipmaker, was quoted as saying by the Reuters report.
"It also missed a lot of the global AI upward trend," Lee added.
HBM3 is the fourth-generation HBM standard and is currently the most widely used for AI chipsets, including those made by industry leader Nvidia. Meanwhile, at Nvidia's annual developer conference in March, Chief Executive Jensen Huang unveiled a series of announcements aimed at maintaining the chip maker's leadership in the artificial-intelligence industry.
Huang introduced Nvidia's newest chip, boasting speeds up to 30 times faster in certain tasks compared to its predecessor. Additionally, he outlined a fresh suite of software tools aimed at assisting developers in efficiently marketing AI models to companies leveraging technology from Nvidia. The company's clientele comprises the majority of the world's largest technology firms.