Samsung is facing a shortage of talent for its 3nm chip production, Korean media reveal. According to the report, the Korean company is moving the workforce internally and putting teams on the R&D team for the new hubs.
Due to a lack of local specialists and workers, Samsung had stopped accepting orders for older 130-65nm foundry processes from domestic small and medium-sized companies specializing in semiconductor design.
Samsung is not the only company facing such a problem. The high demand for modern chipsets puts competing companies in a similar position, including TSMC, the market leader in chip manufacturing.
American companies face a shortage of 27,000 people in the next 10 years, while the labor shortage in China is expected to be 300,000 people by 2025. Korea needs nearly 6,000 people with master’s and doctoral degrees in semiconductor engineering to keep up with demand.
Samsung Foundry R&D office in Hwaseong, South Korea
The teams at the R&D center in Hwaseong will work to improve the yield from a single wafer. The next generation chipsets are in high demand, while the older nodes are not what is wanted in the market anymore.
Analysts expect the chip market to grow by 1/3 in the next five years, which will push Samsung to increase its investment in signing partnership contracts with major universities. However, South Korea is facing a decline in the quality of education, which puts a damper on Samsung’s intentions.
Source (in Korean)
