Semes CEO Kang in US visit to secure talents

The CEO of South Korean fab equipment maker Semes, a subsidiary of Samsung Electronics, is visiting the US to secure talented engineers, TheElec has learned.

Semes CEO Kang Chang-jin is seeking to hire senior engineers that are experts in semiconductor etching equipment, sources said.

Semes is South Korea’s largest fab and display equipment maker.

Most of its sales comes from parent company Samsung Electronics __ the tech giant accounted for 98.3% of its sales in the first quarter.

One of Semes’ main product is etching equipment, which are mostly used by Samsung for its NAND flash production.

Samsung has relied on the kits from Lam Research and Tokyo Electron in the past but Semes succeeded in developing its own dry etching equipment in 2019 and is seeing supply to its parent company increase.

Semes’ kits are expected to be used by Samsung for the production of 176-layer V7 3D NAND flash production that will start later this year.

Samsung has previously used mostly kits by Tokyo Electron but replaced them with Semes as the supplier.

However, Semes’ equipment are still used in low-end processes. For the sophisticated processes, Samsung is planning to use Lam Research in the production of V7 3D NAND flash.

Kang’s trip is likely aimed at securing talents so that Semes can also developed kits that can be used in the high-end processes, the sources said.

Semes has recently hired multiple executives that previously worked at Lam Research and Applied Materials.

Research VP Kim Yun-sang previously worked at Lam Research as well as production VP Shim Hyun-jong. Another production VP Lee Won-seok previously worked at Applied Materials.

Kang’s visit was unusual as his term as CEO is expected to end in March next year.

Previous CEOs of Semes only held one term as CEO at the company.

Semes currently has 18 executives __ out of the 16 standing executives, 12 are from Samsung Electronics and 3 from foreign fab equipment makers. One is from Doosan Group.