After missing the AI boom – badly – Samsung shuffles the C-Suite

Memory and foundry businesses get new leaders as Chaebol seeks to enter HBM heaven

Generative AI has created a once-in-a-generation surge in memory sales and semiconductor production – which Samsung Electronics has managed to flub, leading to a Wednesday announcement that it's named new senior leadership for its memory and foundry businesses.

Interest in AI has seen the likes of Nvidia post 94 percent year-on-year revenue growth and Dell report 58 percent improvement in server and networking revenue. Samsung, by contrast, recently apologized to investors after profits plunged – thanks in part to what EVP for Memory, Jaejune Kim, described as "commercialization delays" afflicting the fast HBM memory needed to make AI sing.

Kim appears to have a new boss, as Samsung Electronics announced the appointment of Young Hyun Jun – previously vice chair and head of the Device Solutions Division – as CEO and head of both the Memory Business and the Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology.

Jinman Han was promoted to president and will become the head of Foundry Business. His CV seems made for the job: he's worked on design teams for DRAM and Flash memory, led SSD development, and previously served as EVP and president of Device Solutions for America.

Samsung's foundry biz, meanwhile, has created the role of chief technology officer and named Seok Woo Nam in the role.

The electronics giant has also created a Future Business Division to be led by Hansung Ko, CEO of Samsung's pharmaceutical outfit Bioepis.

One important job for all the new execs is to make sure Samsung produces HBM4 memory, which will be needed for Nvidia's next-gen Rubin GPUs. The Korean megalith struggled to get HBM3 out the door in time for Nvidia's Blackwell parts – a big missed opportunity.

Improving Samsung's foundry service – which, like almost all players, is inferior to TSMC's – is also likely on the agenda, both to win more customers and to ensure the giant corp is less reliant on competitors for the silicon it needs in its own products. ®