Why is memory chipmaker SK hynix recruiting foundry talent? [Chip Chip Fab Fab]

Editor's note: Chip Chip Fab Fab is a series that explores the semiconductor industry powering the AI era — in depth and in plain language. The name links the "chip" at the heart of the AI revolution with the "fab" that makes it, and echoes the rhythmic chug of a train to capture the industry's relentless forward momentum. Complex technology made accessible, the stories behind the headlines told in full — this series follows the present and future of the semiconductors driving the AI age.

"Large conglomerates' mass hiring is sucking up fabless talent like a black hole." — a source in the fabless industry

SK hynix made headlines last month when it announced it would eliminate all academic credential requirements from its hiring process. The move reflects a shift toward evaluating candidates on actual job competency rather than degrees or standardized qualifications — a philosophy the company says fits the demands of the AI era.

But the scale and scope of the current recruitment drive are what have the industry on edge. The company is conducting what is, for rolling new-graduate hiring, an unusually large selection — with triple-digit openings across key roles. Some industry observers estimate that more than 1,000 engineers will join through this round alone.

The experienced-hire postings are equally striking. SK hynix is recruiting for 54 experienced positions this cycle — well above the 34 roles it advertised in February, which had itself been the broadest recent round. Of those, 31 positions fall under tech research and development, broken down into highly specific sub-roles.

A closer look at those R&D roles reveals both the direction SK hynix is heading and why it has chosen this particular moment to go after this particular talent.

The tech R&D listings show a notably granular breakdown of HBM-related roles: HBM circuit design, HBM digital design, front-end, back-end, SoC (system-on-chip) design, verification, and HBM foundry process integration, among others. The postings signal an aggressive push to bring in system semiconductor design talent and foundry engineers.

The HBM foundry process integration role stands out in particular. The job description explicitly calls for candidates with hands-on experience in PDK (process design kit), DFM (design for manufacturability), and design-rule work within a foundry process or fabless environment — an open signal that SK hynix wants people who have worked inside a foundry. The HBM digital design (front-end) posting goes further, listing "experience implementing TSMC 3-nanometer projects" as a desired qualification.

The system semiconductor design roles are equally telling. SK hynix is recruiting for advanced system architecture and HBM digital design (SoC design) positions — a sign that its ambitions extend well beyond producing chips like HBM. The company appears to be seeking engineers with deep knowledge of computer architecture, including GPUs, as it looks to evolve from a component supplier into an entity that designs the systems around those components.

Recruiting for these roles as experienced hires carries two implications. The first is that the base die — the bottom layer of the HBM stack — is becoming an increasingly critical component. The base die controls the stacked DRAM layers above it and acts as a control hub, mediating signals between the DRAM and the GPU that serves as the system's brain.

In the HBM4 market, the quality of the base die has emerged as a key determinant of a product's final bin rating. Samsung Electronics used its in-house foundry's 4-nanometer process to manufacture its HBM4 base die, maximizing controller performance and power efficiency — an approach that ultimately secured top-bin (Bin 1) qualification from Nvidia.

SK hynix, by contrast, produced its own base die through HBM3E but switched to TSMC's 12-nanometer process for HBM4. The transition contributed to a later mass-production schedule than its rival. Industry sources say SK hynix only recently began shipping its HBM4 12-layer product in volume, with a production ramp-up expected around September. The company's push to hire system semiconductor design and foundry engineers appears aimed at deepening collaboration with TSMC on base-die design.

The second implication points to SK hynix's broader strategic direction. SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won recently spoke about the vision for SK hynix in a Bloomberg interview following the company's American depositary receipt listing in the United States.

"Simply selling chips as generic commodities — 'here, use this' — will no longer work," Chey said. "The business will evolve toward delivering a kind of package service: a combination of custom memory stacks optimized for each customer's service characteristics and inference environment, paired with tailored software solutions. We intend to lead that innovation."

SK hynix has already taken steps in that direction, restructuring its subsidiary Solidigm to establish an AI company in the United States. At a recent press briefing for foreign correspondents, Chey said the company now needs far more AI specialists than memory engineers alone. "The AI company will play a critical role in conducting joint research and development with customers and partners, and in pursuing new business together," he said.

The vision has expanded: SK hynix is positioning itself not merely as a chip supplier but as a full-stack AI memory creator — one that operates at the frontier of AI development and offers direct solutions to the problems its customers face.

In practice, that means SK hynix is expected to center its roadmap on cHBM — custom HBM — optimizing base-die design and packaging architecture to match each customer's AI chip structure, workload, and power and thermal requirements. The industry is moving toward what might be called the "foundry-ization of memory."

"Engineers are needed to design the base die, and as custom memory becomes more important, it makes sense to bring in design and foundry talent," a semiconductor industry official said. "Packaging has also become critical, which means packaging considerations have to be factored in from the design stage. The base die is responsible for managing heat and bandwidth, so hiring more people for that role follows naturally."

The hiring blitz has sent ripples across the semiconductor industry. The timing — late June — has also raised eyebrows. At Samsung Electronics, the non-memory divisions responsible for system semiconductors (the System LSI unit) and contract chip manufacturing (the foundry division) have been simmering with internal discontent over bonus payouts that lag far behind those of the memory division.

Foundry collaboration is, in fact, essential to producing HBM — the foundry division handles base-die design and manufacturing. For Samsung to realize the synergies of an integrated device manufacturer, as it often emphasizes, neither the loss-making foundry operation nor the System LSI design unit can be dispensed with. Yet the bonus gap has widened to roughly threefold — memory division employees receive around 600 million won ($399,000) per person, while their non-memory counterparts receive around 200 million won — leaving non-memory staff with a deep sense of relative deprivation.

Against that backdrop, SK hynix's job postings stirred even more unease inside Samsung. Employee A, who works in a non-memory division, described the mood: "People have been talking a lot lately about who got through SK hynix's document screening. We even joke about 'see you in Icheon'" — a reference to the city where SK hynix is headquartered.

Samsung Electronics' largest union, the cross-company union's Samsung chapter, timed its own "job-change awareness survey" to coincide with SK hynix's new-hire recruitment announcement — bluntly asking members whether they planned to apply to a rival company. The union said it would use the results in wage and collective bargaining negotiations in 2027. The survey found that one in three respondents said they were considering a job change.

The deeper problem, however, is playing out at small and mid-sized fabless companies. Large conglomerates' hiring drives are absorbing carefully cultivated talent wholesale. Lee Hyo-seung, chief executive of Neowine — one of South Korea's first-generation system semiconductor fabless firms — aired his frustrations on social media in a post titled "Hiring is madness."

"When small fabless CEOs get together these days, everyone sighs the same sigh," Lee wrote, relaying complaints he hears repeatedly: "Four people left for a conglomerate in two months." "I've sent more than ten people to big companies over the years." "We spend three years training someone until they're actually useful, and then they get poached."

"Small companies spend hundreds of millions of won per person over three years to develop an engineer, and the moment that person becomes productive, a conglomerate takes them," Lee continued. "The real problem isn't the poaching — it's the structure. Large companies that once trained thousands of new graduates and sent them into the workforce have, as the wage gap widened, shifted heavily toward experienced hiring, vacuuming up fully developed talent. The training costs fall on small companies that can least afford them, while the benefits flow to large companies that can."

In a phone interview, Lee said the situation was pushing small firms to stop hiring new graduates altogether. "They're not mine to keep, so I'm increasingly reluctant to take on new hires. AI isn't pushing people out — it's stopping companies from hiring in the first place," he said. "Some fabless CEOs are so worried about talent drain that they've started recruiting graduates from arts universities," he added.

Is there a solution? Germany offers an imperfect but instructive model: companies pay training allowances while the government funds vocational schools — a shared-cost structure in which the party that does the training reaps a return on that investment.

"If small and medium-sized enterprises received tax credits or talent-development fund contributions in proportion to the number of engineers they trained, they would no longer hesitate to invest in people," Lee said. "Please remember that developing young talent is not a matter of one company's profit and loss — it is a national challenge."