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Yang Mong-song, co-CEO who recently sent a resignation letter to SMIC, a Chinese foundry company. He worked at Samsung Electronics from 2011 to 2015 and served as vice president of the foundry business team. Screenshot of SMIC home page
China’s SMIC, the world’s fifth-largest foundry (semiconductor consignment production) company, hired Chang Sang-i, who served as the chief operating officer (COO) at TSMC, Taiwan, as vice president. The presentation of a senior executive from TSMC, the world’s number one foundry, is positive news for SMIC. However, on the 16th, when the news was announced, SMIC’s share price fell 4.94% on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and 5.53% on the Shanghai Stock Exchange. In the semiconductor industry, analysts say this is because investors were put off by the news of the sudden “resignation” of SMIC CEO Yang Mong-song, which came on this day in lieu of the recruitment. from Vice President Jang Sang. What kind of person is Yang Mong-song that shook up the stock price of China’s number one foundry company?
Fungwoon-ah in the semiconductor industry with 450 patents from TSMC
Representative Mong-Song Yang is called the ‘Woon-ah Mushroom’ of the East Asian semiconductor industry. Just by looking at history, you can see that “it is not common.” He is Taiwanese. Born in 1952, he completed his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in electrical engineering in Taiwan. Later, he received a doctorate in electrical engineering and computer engineering from UC Berkeley. SMIC presents it like this.
Dr. Yang has more than 34 years of experience in the semiconductor industry and has been dedicated to developing memory and advanced logic process technologies. He owns more than 450 semiconductor patents and has published more than 350 technical articles.
After working at AMD in the United States, he worked as an engineer at TSMC, a foundry company in his home country, since 1992, and was selected as the “best expert” in the field of “FINFET” process technology. Finpet is a structure in which the area where the door and the channel are joined by raising the semiconductor channel as if a building were constructed. It is so named because the shape of the channel resembles a fin. In view of the fact that the wider the surface between the door and the channel, the higher the efficiency, and the structure was changed to a structure that touches in three planes instead of one plane.
Yang suddenly resigned from TSMC in 2009 and taught the semiconductor workforce at Samsung Electronics by working as a visiting professor at Sungkyunkwan University in South Korea with an enemy at Tsinghua University in Taiwan.
Contributing to Samsung’s development of the world’s first 14nm process
In 2011, when the rotation ban was lifted, Professor Yang will be an executive researcher in the foundry business team of Samsung Electronics’ System LSI division. The foundry business team is the predecessor of the foundry business unit, which was split into a separate business unit in 2017.
Since joining both members in 2011, Samsung Electronics foundry technology has taken a leap forward. Samsung Electronics, whose circuit line width (gate width through which current flows) was 28 nm (nanometer, one billionth of a meter) was the latter, surprising the semiconductor industry by developing the first process World’s ’14nm ‘Finpet in 2014. Developed the latest technology ahead of the world’s number one TSMC. The latest 14nm process played an important role at Samsung Electronics beating TSMC in winning a contract for contract production of Apple’s iPhone AP (application processor). Both members are promoted to the level of “Vice President”.
The lobby of the TSMC headquarters in Taiwan. Photo = EPA
Yang’s mother, TSMC, did not stand still. In 2014, TSMC sued Vice President Yang. TSMC Vice President Yang went to Samsung Electronics and insisted that TSMC’s main patent be handed over to Samsung Electronics. The Taiwan Supreme Court ruled that “Vice President Yang Mong-song cannot work for Samsung Electronics until the end of 2015.” Vice President Yang Mong-song left the company after reinstating at Samsung Electronics in early 2016.
Moved from Samsung Electronics to SMIC in China
About a year later, in September 2017, the place where Yang’s former Samsung Electronics Vice President became ‘COO (Director of Operations)’ is SMIC, a leading foundry company in China. Former Vice President Yang will take the lead in improving SMIC’s foundry technology as Co-CEO and Chief Technology Officer.
Representative Yang played an important role in the mass production of products in SMIC’s 14nm finpet process by showing his main specialty. In the first half of this year, SMIC succeeded in mass production by receiving orders for Huawei’s 14nm application processor (AP) ‘Kirin 710A’. SMIC’s technology, which was assessed as third-class in the global market, has been elevated to the second-class level.
Recently, SMIC, like TSMC and Samsung Electronics, is working hard to introduce ultrafine processes below 7nm. The Chinese government is also fully supporting the SMIC. SMIC raised around 9 trillion won through the Science Innovation Edition’s second listing on the Shanghai Stock Exchange in July. All of this money is expected to be used to enter the ultra-fine process. Last year, while promoting the introduction of ASML’s EUV (extreme ultraviolet) exposure equipment in the Netherlands, which is essential for the 5nm process, the US government did not check.
When SMIC emerged with Huawei as a symbol of the success of Chinese semiconductors, the US government drew a sword. The US Department of Commerce and the US Department of Defense recently ‘blacklisted’ SMIC as Huawei to prevent leaks of US-made equipment and technology.
Sent a ‘letter of resignation’ after being kicked out of the power play surrounding staff
In this situation, the news broke that Yang had left SMIC. Stock market investors responded more sensitively to Mongsong Yang’s withdrawal from SMIC than to SMIC’s hiring of the former TSMC Vice President COO.
As the cause of Yang’s rotation, “salutation discord” is mentioned. According to foreign media, in a letter addressed to SMIC’s board of directors, Yang said: “We made desperate efforts to complete a total of 5 processes from 28 nm to 7 nm in 3 years” and stated that “a typical foundry company would take longer of 10 years”. In this situation, the TSMC superintendent, his family member, resigned when the former chief operating officer was hired as senior vice president. Yang is said to have opposed the hiring of the CEO. Some people have a disagreement with Zhao Haijun, who served as co-chair.
If SMIC’s foundry business is affected by the departure of President Yang, Korean foundries are expected to benefit. This is because SMIC was a “potential competitor” aiming to enter the 7nm process, which only Samsung Electronics and TSMC could do.
SMIC’s weakening is good for mid-size Korean foundries
At the same time, there are also observations that it will be easier to get customers for domestic small and medium-sized foundry companies actively targeting the Chinese market. Regarding SMIC’s second quarter sales composition, by region, China (including Hong Kong) accounted for 66.1% ($ 620.32 million) and by process, the proportion of lines over 90nm reached 42.7%. This substantially overlaps with the market actively targeted by small and medium-sized foundries like DB HiTek and SK Hynix System IC. SK Hynix System IC, a subsidiary of SK Hynix foundry, recently held a ceremony to commemorate the mass production of a foundry plant in Wuxi, China, and began producing products in earnest.
Reporter Hwang Jeong-soo [email protected]
