22 ms·

Samsung Electronics cultural issues causing disasters in foundry, LSI, DRAM

343 points by craigjb 4y ago

ethbr0 4y ago
Why do foundry insider articles always hurt my brain? It's like good writing and proximity to the industry are antithetical.
- andrewxdiamond 4y ago
  Guessing, but possibly because almost all foundries are run by people who don’t speak English, at least not natively. You have a longer chain of communication between you and them, so things get muddied. I imagine that foundry news written in Chinese/Korean/Cantonese is much more well written and in depth.
  - ethbr0 4y ago
    There also seems a propensity for packing the maximum amount of information into every sentence. Which leads to the narrative equivalent of a PowerPoint presentation where every slide is just plastered with numbers from corner to corner.
  - sanxiyn 4y ago
    I confirm semiconductor writings in Chinese/Korean are much better than those in English. (Not Cantonese: Cantonese is pretty weak as a written language.) Somewhat surprisingly, best writings, at least at popular level, come from Japan. Japan is the highest literacy society on Earth (if you look at OECD PIAAC, there's just no comparison with anyone else) and Japanese publishing industry is extremely strong, such that real experts can write somewhat technical books on semiconductor industry and you can expect it to sell if it's any good.
- JohnBooty 4y ago
  It's a fairly secretive/competitive industry, right? And with only a few major players, people who work in the industry generally don't want to burn bridges, at least if they ever plan on working in the industry again. So nearly all of the "insider news" is going to be anonymous and read like rumor mill gossip. Especially in the English-speaking press, where there is an extra level of cultural and linguistic indirection. That doesn't directly explain the poor quality of writing, but my guess is that the above factors dissuade a lot of talented journalists from even attempting to cover it. (this is all speculation, of course)
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
mschuster91 4y ago
Samsung losing out to Mediatek is pretty hilarious on its own, given that Mediatek was once known for ultra-cheap, piss poor performing crap [1] and copyright issues [2]. Back some years when I had one of the first CAT rugged phones, which was based on Mediatek, I happened to look at a kernel code dump from them on Github and had I known back then what I know today I could have easily netted me some decent payout for local root exploits. I don't really know what's more absurd, that Samsung managed to fall behind these guys or that MediaTek actually managed to get a grip on quality well enough to rival and surpass Samsung, a multi billion dollar conglomerate. [1] https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?tag=mediatek https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?tag=mediatek [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9225691 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9225691
- dylan522p 4y ago
  MediaTek is killing it. They hired a lot of people from TSMC's process development kit teams which vastly improved their capabilities in integrating IP. They were the first to develop AV1 decode, their modems are pretty decent. They even have leading teams in wifi.
  - nsteel 4y ago
    It won't take much to be better to work with than brcm so let's hope they keep going.
- glowingly 4y ago
  Didn't Mediatek also hire open source developers (or at least one very notable one) to work on their wifi drivers in the mainline kernel? In [2], I'm seeing sensors (not made by Mediatek), GPU drivers (Mali, ask arm on that one), and RF (usually regulatory; legalism?), and whatever else is in that textdump. Is there anything that actually does an analysis? Even the blog source eventually just said they didn't know.
- fomine3 4y ago
  MediaTek Dimensity 9000 uses TSMC 4nm process that is significantly superior than Samsung 4nm/5nm that Qualcomm/Samsung uses. Since everyone except Apple uses Cortex core, it can't lose for perf/watt on CPU. Maybe MediaTek's highend SoC won't be sold much so they can use TSMC process.
chevman 4y ago
There is a Facebook group with 100k+ members dedicated solely to the poor engineering, design, and fabrication of their refrigerators - [SAMSUNG REFRIGERATOR RECALL U.S.A. NOW] - https://www.facebook.com/groups/1520337151601316/ https://www.facebook.com/groups/1520337151601316/
- lizardactivist 4y ago
  99% of which most likely don't even own one, and also partake in the other peculiar groups spreading the notion that dirty, foreign brands are dangerous and unreliable.
  - rootusrootus 4y ago
    I have a Samsung fridge. It singlehandedly convinced me never to buy another Samsung appliance. The reputation is legit.
    - mwint 4y ago
      What kind of issues are you seeing? Naively, a fridge seems like such a simple device that I'm curious how they screwed it up so badly that it's developed an anti-following.
      - rhinoceraptor 4y ago
        I have a samsung fridge, the ice maker does not work. I've tried a lot of things to get it to work, none of which worked. This is not an isolated issue, if you read online it's just accepted that the ice maker will at some point cease the function and will never work again.
      - userbinator 4y ago
        Search "Samsung fridge" on HN to find a bunch of comments on what they've done wrong. It seems they're very eager to overengineer and add technology either just because they can, or possibly to aggressively pursue environmental regulations on energy usage and such (so they can claim to be at the top of efficiency rankings.)
AceJohnny2 4y ago
It has been clear to us for years that Samsung has baaad internal communication issues. When you're at the forefront of technology, you're bound to trip up as bets and explorations don't pan out. Humans being humans, mistakes will happen, but they must be recognized to be corrected and prevented in the future. It's clear that Samsung culture prevents people from admitting mistakes, which of course only leads to more of them as stress builds up. I remember the Samsung Galaxy Note battery problems, and how apparently it was clear to people outside Samsung what the problem was (too tight a clearance a the corners in the case for the batteries, causing bending of the internal electrodes, leading to short-circuits) before Samsung themselves recognized it. You can't always be at the top, a sign of good culture is what happens when you slip. Samsung keeps slipping.
- jason-phillips 4y ago
  > It has been clear to us for years that Samsung has baaad internal communication issues... It's clear that Samsung culture prevents people from admitting mistakes... Jesus H. Christ on a fucking hockey stick. I doubt I've ever read such a breathless hit piece with so many unsupported assertions summarily presented as fact. I worked for Samsung Semiconductor for ten years and left as a software engineering manager. None of these assertions and accusations in the comments here or below leveled at the people with whom I used to work ring true from my perspective. Communication issues? Not admitting mistakes? Please... enlighten me. Tell me how we worked.
  - lostlogin 4y ago
    Could you tell us how you worked?
    - jason-phillips 4y ago
      Just to clarify, is this with or without Aaron Franklin brisket for lunch?
      - lostlogin 4y ago
kmeisthax 4y ago
>In other cases, Samsung LSI executives even seem to be blaming the change in Korean labor laws. Rather than hitting crunch time and having engineers do absurd hours, employees are supposed to be limited to 52 hours a week, maximum. While we hear this is not being adhered to fully, it has cut down on the overworking of many Samsung engineers. The pushback from Samsung is so strong that there is even legislation being pushed to to relax these labor laws. Aah yes. The sign of entirely level-headed and well-managed companies is when they blame the fact that they can't 996 their skilled workers.
- creakingstairs 4y ago
  This is a bit of a hot topic in Korea. I don’t agree with abolishing the 52 hour law but what the opposition is proposing is being able to crunch for a period and take the days off later which is more reasonable than 996 all the times.
  - rocqua 4y ago
    Do they have a limit on how long you can crush, or how soon after a crush you need to have taken the time off?
    - Gareth321 4y ago
      More to the point, Korean and Japanese work cultures heavily disincentivise taking that time off. So even if workers can technically take this time off later, they'll be punished if they do.
  - mijamo 4y ago
    For me 52 hours already sound like a crunch. Regular schedule should be more like 35-40.
    - creakingstairs 4y ago
      I agree I do around 35… and can’t imagine doing 52 every week. This is probably why young Koreans call their country hell,“Hell-Choseon”.
pixelatedindex 4y ago
The work culture at Samsung being toxic is something I have some familiarity with, as I used to know some folks who were working there. It’s a very top down company and the lower tier folks aren’t necessarily encouraged to question things, but more of a “do as I say”. The legislation aspect is really concerning but not surprising as chaebols have an iron grip on the Korean economy. Tough times for Samsung, but in a lot of ways, you yield (pun intended) what you sow.
- bob1029 4y ago
  I used to work at SAS and can corroborate the "top down" nature of the organization. "We just need to copy Korea" is not a good narrative if you want to keep high-quality American engineers interested in a long term career path with you. I lasted barely 3 years before the lack of volition got to me. Went to contract for a video game developer afterwards (huge pay cut) just to clear my mind and reconnect with reality.
  - CamperBob2 4y ago
    Went to contract for a video game developer to clear my mind and reconnect with reality. Damn, that's really saying something about your former employer.
  - pm90 4y ago
    If you wrote about your experience, I (at least) would certainly read it.
    - bob1029 4y ago
      Honestly, the overall experience wasn't that bad. I did get a lot out of those 3 years. To put things into perspective, not many people ever get to set foot inside of a leading-edge fab. I've been inside multiple, both in America & Korea. I've been able to sit in meetings with engineers across the entire spectrum and participate in multi-national system upgrade efforts. The best way to describe the whole experience is like working inside a starship. Genuinely, it feels incredible to walk into that room and see billions of dollars of the most sophisticated hardware on earth all working together in relentless harmony. Simply sitting in the engineering offices and seeing the real-time logs scrolling gives you a sense for the monstrosity just a few firewalls over. The techniques & hardware are exotic by default everywhere. It almost never gets old. But, just like all good things this experience fades with time. I wanted to build new amazing things and being one mere engineering pleb inside this gigantic organization makes that a difficult gambit. Perhaps if the organization was willing to explore more experimental / "internal startup" style work, I could be compelled to review future opportunities. There were plenty of problems to solve but getting a design meeting or a piece of IT infra to run something on were nearly impossible during my time there.
jitl 4y ago
Even in the Bay Area, the Samsung culture is extremely top-down and overwork focused. I’ve heard too many stories of whole departments needing to throw everything out and build something totally different at the very end of year-long projects because on an executive’s whims. On the other hand their cafeteria food is supposedly very good (especially if you like Korean and Japanese).
- spaniard89277 4y ago
  You work for a shitty boss but the cafetería is nice!
  - ineedasername 4y ago
    Yep, food is nice where I work too, but it's not what keeps me around. A great workplace except for bad/no food is worth brown bagging it, going off-site to a random franchise, ordering delivery, etc.
- jason-phillips 4y ago
  > the Samsung culture is extremely top-down and overwork focused Allow me to add some context. The Samsung culture could be described as militaristic, with accompanying rank and ceremony, therefore I can see how you identified the top-down chain-of-command relationships. [edited]
  - formerly_proven 4y ago
    Of course as American employees of the American branch office you might draw comparisons between the work culture there and other, similar tech companies in America and factor this into your valuation of the employer in question.
  - hasmolo 4y ago
    i feel like you’ve made a point here that, if you phrased a little differently, would’ve been an interesting addition to the conversation.
  - 4y ago
mboto 4y ago
Interestingly South Korea is much more accepting of a greater power distance than say the UK [0]. In such situations having a clear line of communication from the bottom to the top on actionable items can be difficult. [0] https://www.hofstede-insights.com/fi/product/compare-countries/ https://www.hofstede-insights.com/fi/product/compare-countri...
lizardactivist 4y ago
Disasters in foundry, LSI, and DRAM? Is the writer sponsored by the U.S. chip manufacturing sector or other pro-American interests? What a weird hit-piece filled with assertions that could never be reliably backed up by other than Samsung themselves conducting a massive internal investigation.
- dylan522p 4y ago
  If anything I am making the case that TSMC is reigning supreme but okay, believe your conspiracy
  - tomatowurst 4y ago
    the sources the article cited are at best unverifiable, even quoting rumor mill directly to support their claims so it does feel quite strange and we can see why from the author's disclaimer: "Clients and employees of SemiAnalysis may hold positions in companies referenced in this article." So somebody seeks to benefit financially from selling the perception that Samsung is in trouble but feels an online disclaimer can shield them litigious Samsung lawyers. This won't end well.
    - dylan522p 4y ago
      It's at the end of every article lol
  - lizardactivist 4y ago
    Yes they are, but it's not about TSMC's superior quality, but the unsubstantiated BS that Samsung's chip manufacturing is a disaster. And if you think that the U.S. is not using every tool in the box to win markets, including bad-mouthing foreign competitors and lying to win customers over, then you're just lying to yourself. Have you been living offline for the last 20 years? The Internet is a battlefield and no-one plays more dirty than the U.S.
    - dylan522p 4y ago
httpz 4y ago
While Samsung's culture could be considered toxic, blaming their recent issues on culture would need more backing. Samsung has seen good growth and has been one of the top semiconductor companies for the past decade. It's not like their culture drastically changed in the recent years. It's the same "toxic" culture that got them here and blaming the culture for their recent hiccups just seem like a sensationalist writing.
- VHRanger 4y ago
  Intel had toxic culture since Brian Krzanich took the lead in 2013, around the switch to 14nm. His mistakes weren't seen clearly until almost 2019, when it became obvious 10nm was a disaster, and 14nm++++++++ was their only workable product. We're still seeing it today as Intel has 250w TDP products competing with AMD 140w TDP products. Semiconductors is a space where mistakes take a while to bit you.
  - bhc 4y ago
    Former Samsung head Lee Kun-hee had a heart attack in 2014, and his son Jay Y. Lee took over. I don't know if that had any effect on the alleged culture problems the article talks about.
  - dylan522p 4y ago
    Most folks blame the culture shift on Paul actually. He was the cause of it all. Brian being a horrible symptom of what he created, and Brian definitely propagated it far.
  - ineedasername 4y ago
    Semiconductors is a space where mistakes take a while to bit you. Although as we've seen with AMD, it is possible to come back from them. With the right course correction, Samsung is diversified enough to tough things out. Didn't they have a massive turnaround sometime in the 80's too?
    - geodel 4y ago
      It's interesting. I read about how Samsung learned and followed a lot of processes from Boeing and lately Boeing has been faltering quite a bit and Samsung seems to be following suit.
opensrcken 4y ago
Clients and employees of SemiAnalysis may hold positions in companies referenced in this article. This article lacks the evidence to warrant the boldness of its arguments. And after reading through the paragraphs of poorly based assertions, I see this at the bottom of the article. Why am I not surprised?
- dylan522p 4y ago
  It's at the bottom of every article. I have to disclose given my relationship with various funds. I am under no impression that my articles can move fucking Samsung's stock. That's hilarious you think I could profit off the market by writing this. There's plenty of evidence though. Be an industry insider and you'd recognize it all. I do know that my reports have moved smaller companies stocks by 20% in a single day, and have been verified true in the past. - https://semianalysis.com/short-report-nvidia-supplier-cut-out-of-next-generation-hopper-gpus-nvidia-represents-up-to-55-of-revenue/ https://semianalysis.com/short-report-nvidia-supplier-cut-ou... If I thought I could move the stock, I'd make the position in the morning alongside my clients, and publish shortly after, like I did with the article I just linked.
  - tomatowurst 4y ago
    > no impression that my articles can move fucking Samsung's stock > I do know that my reports have moved smaller companies stocks by 20% in a single day seems like a weird contradiction. you really think a disclaimer can protect you here? Like many of us pointed out, you've made quite a bold, unsubstantiated claims with poorly cited evidence. You've admitted that your writing in the past have moved the targeted company's stock. > If I thought I could move the stock, I'd make the position in the morning alongside my clients I'm sure you could but writing a piece like this, without substantial evidence, I think could influence investors opinions and you've admitted that your writings in the past have moved stocks negatively. > There's plenty of evidence though. Be an industry insider and you'd recognize it all. so where are the evidence that support your claims?
    - dylan522p 4y ago
Varriount 4y ago
Does anyone know some good reading material regarding the evolution of microchip design and fabrication? I found the article quite interesting, however many of the more technical terms flew over my head.
fomine3 4y ago
For Samsung semi process part, it's just only TSMC is too good, isn't it? Intel, Samsung, and others can't catch up now.
RachelF 4y ago
Avoid their SSD's now too. With the the 980 PRO, Samsung has just changed the components but kept the same model number. Samsung have removed the Elpis controller from the 980 PRO SSD and replaced it with an unknown one. Take a look here for what's changed on the 980 PRO: https://i.imgur.com/YJShyLR.jpg https://i.imgur.com/YJShyLR.jpg
- e2e8 4y ago
  Several (most?) brands do this. Do you know of a brand that definitely does not?
  - wtallis 4y ago
    It's an almost universal practice now for consumer SSDs. Intel's consumer SSD product line was the last one where I was pretty sure they weren't doing this. Companies want to build product identities that can last for more than a year, but also want to be able to react to changes in the supply chain. Fixed BOM guarantees really aren't viable in this product segment, but you can often get such assurances in the enterprise, industrial or client OEM SSD markets. Most of the time, swapping in a newer generation of NAND flash memory is a net improvement for a drive's performance and power efficiency, but when the newer generation increases the capacity per die there will almost always be a downside in some corner-case benchmark. Those swaps aren't worth worrying about, unless you're trying to abuse a consumer SSD for the kind of workloads enterprise SSDs are designed for. Likewise, controller swaps are usually nothing to worry about—aside from some instances where performance downgrades stemming from NAND downgrades have been misattributed to a controller change, the most harmful examples in recent years have been when the amount of DRAM is reduced from the usual 1GB per 1TB ratio down to something more like 256MB per 1TB. The consequences of such a change are easy to demonstrate with synthetic benchmarks, but almost impossible to measure let alone notice for real-world usage patterns. Other times, a controller "downgrade" simply swaps in a cheaper controller that is still more than fast enough for the NAND to be the bottleneck. It would be nice if we could universally get more detailed spec sheets and a guarantee of a new consumer-visible model number when the major components change, but the consumer SSD market has proven too price-sensitive and the technology and supply chain too dynamic for that to be a competitive business strategy. For the most part, you do get what you pay for, except that a few of the top brands also command an undeserved price premium.
creakingstairs 4y ago
I was hoping to get some insider scoop on the Samsungs culture problem. But looks like it’s just a round up of Samsungs bad results rather than specific tales of toxicity or culture issues. I don’t doubt it for one second that there are toxicity issues but I also found some of the sources don’t support what they are alledging. > These various units are allegedly playing the blame game with each other. Samsung LSI (design) is blaming Samsung Foundry, while Samsung Mobile is blaming S.LSI. The link in this paragraph doesn’t actually have anything about them blaming each other. > that the foundry is even allegedly lying about the yields The link here also doesn’t say anything about “lying”. It says they will do a diagnosis/audit around the low yield problem. I didn’t bother clicking on all the links. But some links are right but kinda erodes the trust in the article when this is happening.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- tomatowurst 4y ago
  My suspicion also, they outright quoted a rumor mill forum post here: https://meeco.kr/mini/34835643 https://meeco.kr/mini/34835643 Someone reading that article might have walked away with the impression that Samsung's collapse is imminent, which seems to be the narrative often touted on the internet circles by people with some type of stake in TSMC or its allied subsidiaries. "Clients and employees of SemiAnalysis may hold positions in companies referenced in this article." I mean from the authors disclaimer here we can see why the article reads like some Zerohedge article. I hope the author can afford expensive lawyers because there's just no way Samsung is going to let the author off the hook, they've gone after journalists for way less.
creakingstairs 4y ago
I’m sure toxic culture is one of the reasons for Samsung falling behind. But I don’t think that can be a sufficient cause. If toxic culture is the reason for the recent slip up, how has Samsung grown before the slip up when it was arguably even more toxic?
- oriolid 4y ago
  I recently ran into political science term "pockets of efficiency", which is used to explain why some part of a large corrupt organization (originally state, but I don't see why a giant corporation would be different) can work efficiently. I suspect Samsung used to have a lot of these, because they have manufactured a lot of terrible consumer products but still somehow they have had financial success and their components can be found in decent products too.
  - creakingstairs 4y ago
    Interesting. I’ll look that up! My theory is that toxic culture worked when Samsung was mostly playing catch up (before 2010 ish) to existing products/ technologies. But now they need to innovate, and toxicity is crushing and driving away creative people.
    - oriolid 4y ago
      Now that you mentioned early 2000s, at the time I was shopping for a LCD display. At the time Eizo was the go-to brand for good screens, and they used Samsung panels. As a poor just graduated programmer I bought the Samsung with the same VA panel that Eizo used, and it was awful in ways I would never expect a display could be.
ksec 4y ago
I have written something similar on Semiwiki in 2016 arguing against Daniel how Samsung had problems. And my bet in ~2018 that Samsung wont be able to compete against TSMC turns out to be completely right. It wasn't because I had any technical or insider information. It was only because I knew Samsung, the company, its character and its culture far too well. Unfortunately Google and the internal search function doesn't show up and I can't quote myself back. But the problem isn't internal communication though. It was Samsung Foundry's "sales and marketing" over promise and under deliver. To give them credit they were throwing insane amount of money trying to compete with TSMC. People on HN / Reddit / SemiWiki or whatever forum keep asking why TSMC isn't raising price. Well you should thank Samsung for that. ( But they are also the ones who HN / Reddit / Internet accuse them of NAND / DRAM cartel, guess where those profits went? ). I also think the DRAM and NAND concern are overblown. It has been well known Samsung took the bet to move forward with EUV earlier than other industry vendors aka SK Hynix and Micron. It is not like Micron is going to go straight to EUV and enjoy the advantage over Samsung. Samsung are also not moving forward with EUV on their NAND product. The only concern would be if Micron decided to increase their capacity and build new Fabs. Otherwise, just like any other commodities ( Corn, Steel, Lumber, whatever ), they are Supply and Demand limited. So from a technical perspective they may be losing, from a business perspective things are still within control. In case anyone wants to compare this to Intel's 14nm, the two are extremely different and their market operate in a completely different manner. Hence why TSMC's founder and ex-CEO Morris Cheung famously said he will never enter NAND and DRAM market.
throwaway201025 4y ago
As a Samsung employee, I've been continuously being disappointed by the company culture. Recently, the company introduced a new policy that prohibits phone usage while walking inside the company building, due to "safety concerns". Samsung employed ~20 safety guards to supervise and monitor phone usage throughout the campus and if you're caught by them, you will be warned. If you are caughted twice, your team lead will be notifed of the incident. If you are caught three times or more, you are required to watch an educational video and submit a written apology. I could not believe such a policy could emerge from the very company that makes smartphones. Samsung even had a TV commercial highlighting phone usage on the road! Under such a restrictive and top-down culture like this, I believe nothing interesting can emerge. I can only expect the downfall of the company. Nowadays I'm trying to work as little as possible and desperately searching for other jobs.
- xattt 4y ago
  > … submit a written apology. What the hell kind of mentality is this? I’ve been in a workplace that cracked down on phone use. Everyone was pissed. I considered carrying a small block of wood painted black in act of subversion.
  - zinekeller 4y ago
    > What the hell kind of mentality is this? sighs Traditional Asian mentality. I, and definitely many others, hate it, but it's definitely not just Samsung.
  - djmips 4y ago
    I had to do worse than that when I worked for a Japanese company (with a Korean-Japanese president). I was forced by him to apologize to the entire assembled staff for a 'big mistake that I had made'. Except it wasn't really my mistake it was a foundry change which caused a timing change that affected the code in a vendor's startup for a chip we were using. I was so burned out from crunching on the project (14 hour days) to reverse engineer and fix it fast enough for the president to be happy...
    - 4y ago
EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 4y ago
After reading this lengthy article, was anyone able to comprehend, what exactly are the "cultural issues"?
tomcam 4y ago
> Samsung also had a GPU team that they canned. That feels… counterintuitive, if true.
xyzzy21 4y ago
A non-trivial factor in this: • Samsung: conglomerate Chaebol that includes of 50% revenue from shipping and ship-building, and then insurance, finance, travel, consume appliances, and finally smart phones and semiconductors which are minority revenue source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaebol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaebol https://www.slashgear.com/831286/10-rare-samsung-products-you-probably-didnt-know-existed/ https://www.slashgear.com/831286/10-rare-samsung-products-yo... • TSMC: single product company - foundry only • Apple: "single product" company (compared to Samsung) There is the Asian cultural side of it even for TSMC so it has many of the same top-down management issues. But the key difference is focus. Taiwanese businesses are pretty much never Chaebol/Kieretsu-like - it's far more atomized, independent and interdependent, and focused on a narrow(er) market. There's also more "bottom-up" in terms of origins and this remains to some extent in many of them (I work for a Taiwanese firm that bought my most recent company - and we work with direct competitors when it makes sense market-wise - that pretty much never happens with between Chaebols/Kieretsus. We also have a pretty selective market niche). Compare this to Japanese kieretsu companies such as NEC - which is similarly broad but you also don't think of them anymore when it comes to semiconductor and especially DRAM. Chaebols and Kieretsus are very similar in that they are conglomerates so they are broad with many unrelated businesses and not very agile especially since decision making is top-down. A key difference is Kieretsus are more likely to be top-down BEFORE and AFTER bottom-up consensus cycle - though that's a predilection based on organizational structure. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keiretsu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keiretsu The example the article gives of Hynix proves that it's possible to be a Chaebol yet give enough free rein to business units to make good decisions. But it can work against as well. Another factor with Samsung: their shipping business has taken major hits in the last 5-7 years. Which given that is 50% of their revenue, probably still diverts proper executive attentions away from semiconductor and cell phones resulting is fiat decisions not based on good data. https://thediplomat.com/2016/06/south-koreas-shipbuilding-crisis/ https://thediplomat.com/2016/06/south-koreas-shipbuilding-cr...
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
tomjohn22 4y ago
tomjohn223 4y ago
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

343 points by craigjb 4y ago

Why do foundry insider articles always hurt my brain? It's like good writing and proximity to the industry are antithetical.

andrewxdiamond 4y ago
Guessing, but possibly because almost all foundries are run by people who don’t speak English, at least not natively. You have a longer chain of communication between you and them, so things get muddied. I imagine that foundry news written in Chinese/Korean/Cantonese is much more well written and in depth.
- ethbr0 4y ago
  There also seems a propensity for packing the maximum amount of information into every sentence. Which leads to the narrative equivalent of a PowerPoint presentation where every slide is just plastered with numbers from corner to corner.
- sanxiyn 4y ago
  I confirm semiconductor writings in Chinese/Korean are much better than those in English. (Not Cantonese: Cantonese is pretty weak as a written language.) Somewhat surprisingly, best writings, at least at popular level, come from Japan. Japan is the highest literacy society on Earth (if you look at OECD PIAAC, there's just no comparison with anyone else) and Japanese publishing industry is extremely strong, such that real experts can write somewhat technical books on semiconductor industry and you can expect it to sell if it's any good.
JohnBooty 4y ago
It's a fairly secretive/competitive industry, right? And with only a few major players, people who work in the industry generally don't want to burn bridges, at least if they ever plan on working in the industry again. So nearly all of the "insider news" is going to be anonymous and read like rumor mill gossip. Especially in the English-speaking press, where there is an extra level of cultural and linguistic indirection. That doesn't directly explain the poor quality of writing, but my guess is that the above factors dissuade a lot of talented journalists from even attempting to cover it. (this is all speculation, of course)

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

mschuster91 4y ago

Samsung losing out to Mediatek is pretty hilarious on its own, given that Mediatek was once known for ultra-cheap, piss poor performing crap [1] and copyright issues [2]. Back some years when I had one of the first CAT rugged phones, which was based on Mediatek, I happened to look at a kernel code dump from them on Github and had I known back then what I know today I could have easily netted me some decent payout for local root exploits. I don't really know what's more absurd, that Samsung managed to fall behind these guys or that MediaTek actually managed to get a grip on quality well enough to rival and surpass Samsung, a multi billion dollar conglomerate. [1] https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?tag=mediatek https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?tag=mediatek [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9225691 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9225691

dylan522p 4y ago
MediaTek is killing it. They hired a lot of people from TSMC's process development kit teams which vastly improved their capabilities in integrating IP. They were the first to develop AV1 decode, their modems are pretty decent. They even have leading teams in wifi.
- nsteel 4y ago
  It won't take much to be better to work with than brcm so let's hope they keep going.
glowingly 4y ago
Didn't Mediatek also hire open source developers (or at least one very notable one) to work on their wifi drivers in the mainline kernel? In [2], I'm seeing sensors (not made by Mediatek), GPU drivers (Mali, ask arm on that one), and RF (usually regulatory; legalism?), and whatever else is in that textdump. Is there anything that actually does an analysis? Even the blog source eventually just said they didn't know.
fomine3 4y ago
MediaTek Dimensity 9000 uses TSMC 4nm process that is significantly superior than Samsung 4nm/5nm that Qualcomm/Samsung uses. Since everyone except Apple uses Cortex core, it can't lose for perf/watt on CPU. Maybe MediaTek's highend SoC won't be sold much so they can use TSMC process.

chevman 4y ago

There is a Facebook group with 100k+ members dedicated solely to the poor engineering, design, and fabrication of their refrigerators - [SAMSUNG REFRIGERATOR RECALL U.S.A. NOW] - https://www.facebook.com/groups/1520337151601316/ https://www.facebook.com/groups/1520337151601316/

lizardactivist 4y ago
99% of which most likely don't even own one, and also partake in the other peculiar groups spreading the notion that dirty, foreign brands are dangerous and unreliable.
- rootusrootus 4y ago
  I have a Samsung fridge. It singlehandedly convinced me never to buy another Samsung appliance. The reputation is legit.
  - mwint 4y ago
    What kind of issues are you seeing? Naively, a fridge seems like such a simple device that I'm curious how they screwed it up so badly that it's developed an anti-following.
    - rhinoceraptor 4y ago
      I have a samsung fridge, the ice maker does not work. I've tried a lot of things to get it to work, none of which worked. This is not an isolated issue, if you read online it's just accepted that the ice maker will at some point cease the function and will never work again.
    - userbinator 4y ago
      Search "Samsung fridge" on HN to find a bunch of comments on what they've done wrong. It seems they're very eager to overengineer and add technology either just because they can, or possibly to aggressively pursue environmental regulations on energy usage and such (so they can claim to be at the top of efficiency rankings.)

AceJohnny2 4y ago

It has been clear to us for years that Samsung has baaad internal communication issues. When you're at the forefront of technology, you're bound to trip up as bets and explorations don't pan out. Humans being humans, mistakes will happen, but they must be recognized to be corrected and prevented in the future. It's clear that Samsung culture prevents people from admitting mistakes, which of course only leads to more of them as stress builds up. I remember the Samsung Galaxy Note battery problems, and how apparently it was clear to people outside Samsung what the problem was (too tight a clearance a the corners in the case for the batteries, causing bending of the internal electrodes, leading to short-circuits) before Samsung themselves recognized it. You can't always be at the top, a sign of good culture is what happens when you slip. Samsung keeps slipping.

jason-phillips 4y ago
> It has been clear to us for years that Samsung has baaad internal communication issues... It's clear that Samsung culture prevents people from admitting mistakes... Jesus H. Christ on a fucking hockey stick. I doubt I've ever read such a breathless hit piece with so many unsupported assertions summarily presented as fact. I worked for Samsung Semiconductor for ten years and left as a software engineering manager. None of these assertions and accusations in the comments here or below leveled at the people with whom I used to work ring true from my perspective. Communication issues? Not admitting mistakes? Please... enlighten me. Tell me how we worked.
- lostlogin 4y ago
  Could you tell us how you worked?
  - jason-phillips 4y ago
    Just to clarify, is this with or without Aaron Franklin brisket for lunch?
    - lostlogin 4y ago

kmeisthax 4y ago

>In other cases, Samsung LSI executives even seem to be blaming the change in Korean labor laws. Rather than hitting crunch time and having engineers do absurd hours, employees are supposed to be limited to 52 hours a week, maximum. While we hear this is not being adhered to fully, it has cut down on the overworking of many Samsung engineers. The pushback from Samsung is so strong that there is even legislation being pushed to to relax these labor laws. Aah yes. The sign of entirely level-headed and well-managed companies is when they blame the fact that they can't 996 their skilled workers.

creakingstairs 4y ago
This is a bit of a hot topic in Korea. I don’t agree with abolishing the 52 hour law but what the opposition is proposing is being able to crunch for a period and take the days off later which is more reasonable than 996 all the times.
- rocqua 4y ago
  Do they have a limit on how long you can crush, or how soon after a crush you need to have taken the time off?
  - Gareth321 4y ago
    More to the point, Korean and Japanese work cultures heavily disincentivise taking that time off. So even if workers can technically take this time off later, they'll be punished if they do.
- mijamo 4y ago
  For me 52 hours already sound like a crunch. Regular schedule should be more like 35-40.
  - creakingstairs 4y ago
    I agree I do around 35… and can’t imagine doing 52 every week. This is probably why young Koreans call their country hell,“Hell-Choseon”.

pixelatedindex 4y ago

The work culture at Samsung being toxic is something I have some familiarity with, as I used to know some folks who were working there. It’s a very top down company and the lower tier folks aren’t necessarily encouraged to question things, but more of a “do as I say”. The legislation aspect is really concerning but not surprising as chaebols have an iron grip on the Korean economy. Tough times for Samsung, but in a lot of ways, you yield (pun intended) what you sow.

bob1029 4y ago
I used to work at SAS and can corroborate the "top down" nature of the organization. "We just need to copy Korea" is not a good narrative if you want to keep high-quality American engineers interested in a long term career path with you. I lasted barely 3 years before the lack of volition got to me. Went to contract for a video game developer afterwards (huge pay cut) just to clear my mind and reconnect with reality.
- CamperBob2 4y ago
  Went to contract for a video game developer to clear my mind and reconnect with reality. Damn, that's really saying something about your former employer.
- pm90 4y ago
  If you wrote about your experience, I (at least) would certainly read it.
  - bob1029 4y ago
    Honestly, the overall experience wasn't that bad. I did get a lot out of those 3 years. To put things into perspective, not many people ever get to set foot inside of a leading-edge fab. I've been inside multiple, both in America & Korea. I've been able to sit in meetings with engineers across the entire spectrum and participate in multi-national system upgrade efforts. The best way to describe the whole experience is like working inside a starship. Genuinely, it feels incredible to walk into that room and see billions of dollars of the most sophisticated hardware on earth all working together in relentless harmony. Simply sitting in the engineering offices and seeing the real-time logs scrolling gives you a sense for the monstrosity just a few firewalls over. The techniques & hardware are exotic by default everywhere. It almost never gets old. But, just like all good things this experience fades with time. I wanted to build new amazing things and being one mere engineering pleb inside this gigantic organization makes that a difficult gambit. Perhaps if the organization was willing to explore more experimental / "internal startup" style work, I could be compelled to review future opportunities. There were plenty of problems to solve but getting a design meeting or a piece of IT infra to run something on were nearly impossible during my time there.

jitl 4y ago

Even in the Bay Area, the Samsung culture is extremely top-down and overwork focused. I’ve heard too many stories of whole departments needing to throw everything out and build something totally different at the very end of year-long projects because on an executive’s whims. On the other hand their cafeteria food is supposedly very good (especially if you like Korean and Japanese).

spaniard89277 4y ago
You work for a shitty boss but the cafetería is nice!
- ineedasername 4y ago
  Yep, food is nice where I work too, but it's not what keeps me around. A great workplace except for bad/no food is worth brown bagging it, going off-site to a random franchise, ordering delivery, etc.
jason-phillips 4y ago
> the Samsung culture is extremely top-down and overwork focused Allow me to add some context. The Samsung culture could be described as militaristic, with accompanying rank and ceremony, therefore I can see how you identified the top-down chain-of-command relationships. [edited]
- formerly_proven 4y ago
  Of course as American employees of the American branch office you might draw comparisons between the work culture there and other, similar tech companies in America and factor this into your valuation of the employer in question.
- hasmolo 4y ago
  i feel like you’ve made a point here that, if you phrased a little differently, would’ve been an interesting addition to the conversation.
- 4y ago

mboto 4y ago

Interestingly South Korea is much more accepting of a greater power distance than say the UK [0]. In such situations having a clear line of communication from the bottom to the top on actionable items can be difficult. [0] https://www.hofstede-insights.com/fi/product/compare-countries/ https://www.hofstede-insights.com/fi/product/compare-countri...

lizardactivist 4y ago

Disasters in foundry, LSI, and DRAM? Is the writer sponsored by the U.S. chip manufacturing sector or other pro-American interests? What a weird hit-piece filled with assertions that could never be reliably backed up by other than Samsung themselves conducting a massive internal investigation.

dylan522p 4y ago
If anything I am making the case that TSMC is reigning supreme but okay, believe your conspiracy
- tomatowurst 4y ago
  the sources the article cited are at best unverifiable, even quoting rumor mill directly to support their claims so it does feel quite strange and we can see why from the author's disclaimer: "Clients and employees of SemiAnalysis may hold positions in companies referenced in this article." So somebody seeks to benefit financially from selling the perception that Samsung is in trouble but feels an online disclaimer can shield them litigious Samsung lawyers. This won't end well.
  - dylan522p 4y ago
    It's at the end of every article lol
- lizardactivist 4y ago
  Yes they are, but it's not about TSMC's superior quality, but the unsubstantiated BS that Samsung's chip manufacturing is a disaster. And if you think that the U.S. is not using every tool in the box to win markets, including bad-mouthing foreign competitors and lying to win customers over, then you're just lying to yourself. Have you been living offline for the last 20 years? The Internet is a battlefield and no-one plays more dirty than the U.S.
  - dylan522p 4y ago

httpz 4y ago

While Samsung's culture could be considered toxic, blaming their recent issues on culture would need more backing. Samsung has seen good growth and has been one of the top semiconductor companies for the past decade. It's not like their culture drastically changed in the recent years. It's the same "toxic" culture that got them here and blaming the culture for their recent hiccups just seem like a sensationalist writing.

VHRanger 4y ago
Intel had toxic culture since Brian Krzanich took the lead in 2013, around the switch to 14nm. His mistakes weren't seen clearly until almost 2019, when it became obvious 10nm was a disaster, and 14nm++++++++ was their only workable product. We're still seeing it today as Intel has 250w TDP products competing with AMD 140w TDP products. Semiconductors is a space where mistakes take a while to bit you.
- bhc 4y ago
  Former Samsung head Lee Kun-hee had a heart attack in 2014, and his son Jay Y. Lee took over. I don't know if that had any effect on the alleged culture problems the article talks about.
- dylan522p 4y ago
  Most folks blame the culture shift on Paul actually. He was the cause of it all. Brian being a horrible symptom of what he created, and Brian definitely propagated it far.
- ineedasername 4y ago
  Semiconductors is a space where mistakes take a while to bit you. Although as we've seen with AMD, it is possible to come back from them. With the right course correction, Samsung is diversified enough to tough things out. Didn't they have a massive turnaround sometime in the 80's too?
  - geodel 4y ago
    It's interesting. I read about how Samsung learned and followed a lot of processes from Boeing and lately Boeing has been faltering quite a bit and Samsung seems to be following suit.

opensrcken 4y ago

Clients and employees of SemiAnalysis may hold positions in companies referenced in this article. This article lacks the evidence to warrant the boldness of its arguments. And after reading through the paragraphs of poorly based assertions, I see this at the bottom of the article. Why am I not surprised?

dylan522p 4y ago
It's at the bottom of every article. I have to disclose given my relationship with various funds. I am under no impression that my articles can move fucking Samsung's stock. That's hilarious you think I could profit off the market by writing this. There's plenty of evidence though. Be an industry insider and you'd recognize it all. I do know that my reports have moved smaller companies stocks by 20% in a single day, and have been verified true in the past. - https://semianalysis.com/short-report-nvidia-supplier-cut-out-of-next-generation-hopper-gpus-nvidia-represents-up-to-55-of-revenue/ https://semianalysis.com/short-report-nvidia-supplier-cut-ou... If I thought I could move the stock, I'd make the position in the morning alongside my clients, and publish shortly after, like I did with the article I just linked.
- tomatowurst 4y ago
  > no impression that my articles can move fucking Samsung's stock > I do know that my reports have moved smaller companies stocks by 20% in a single day seems like a weird contradiction. you really think a disclaimer can protect you here? Like many of us pointed out, you've made quite a bold, unsubstantiated claims with poorly cited evidence. You've admitted that your writing in the past have moved the targeted company's stock. > If I thought I could move the stock, I'd make the position in the morning alongside my clients I'm sure you could but writing a piece like this, without substantial evidence, I think could influence investors opinions and you've admitted that your writings in the past have moved stocks negatively. > There's plenty of evidence though. Be an industry insider and you'd recognize it all. so where are the evidence that support your claims?
  - dylan522p 4y ago

Varriount 4y ago

Does anyone know some good reading material regarding the evolution of microchip design and fabrication? I found the article quite interesting, however many of the more technical terms flew over my head.

fomine3 4y ago

For Samsung semi process part, it's just only TSMC is too good, isn't it? Intel, Samsung, and others can't catch up now.

RachelF 4y ago

Avoid their SSD's now too. With the the 980 PRO, Samsung has just changed the components but kept the same model number. Samsung have removed the Elpis controller from the 980 PRO SSD and replaced it with an unknown one. Take a look here for what's changed on the 980 PRO: https://i.imgur.com/YJShyLR.jpg https://i.imgur.com/YJShyLR.jpg

e2e8 4y ago
Several (most?) brands do this. Do you know of a brand that definitely does not?
- wtallis 4y ago
  It's an almost universal practice now for consumer SSDs. Intel's consumer SSD product line was the last one where I was pretty sure they weren't doing this. Companies want to build product identities that can last for more than a year, but also want to be able to react to changes in the supply chain. Fixed BOM guarantees really aren't viable in this product segment, but you can often get such assurances in the enterprise, industrial or client OEM SSD markets. Most of the time, swapping in a newer generation of NAND flash memory is a net improvement for a drive's performance and power efficiency, but when the newer generation increases the capacity per die there will almost always be a downside in some corner-case benchmark. Those swaps aren't worth worrying about, unless you're trying to abuse a consumer SSD for the kind of workloads enterprise SSDs are designed for. Likewise, controller swaps are usually nothing to worry about—aside from some instances where performance downgrades stemming from NAND downgrades have been misattributed to a controller change, the most harmful examples in recent years have been when the amount of DRAM is reduced from the usual 1GB per 1TB ratio down to something more like 256MB per 1TB. The consequences of such a change are easy to demonstrate with synthetic benchmarks, but almost impossible to measure let alone notice for real-world usage patterns. Other times, a controller "downgrade" simply swaps in a cheaper controller that is still more than fast enough for the NAND to be the bottleneck. It would be nice if we could universally get more detailed spec sheets and a guarantee of a new consumer-visible model number when the major components change, but the consumer SSD market has proven too price-sensitive and the technology and supply chain too dynamic for that to be a competitive business strategy. For the most part, you do get what you pay for, except that a few of the top brands also command an undeserved price premium.

creakingstairs 4y ago

I was hoping to get some insider scoop on the Samsungs culture problem. But looks like it’s just a round up of Samsungs bad results rather than specific tales of toxicity or culture issues. I don’t doubt it for one second that there are toxicity issues but I also found some of the sources don’t support what they are alledging. > These various units are allegedly playing the blame game with each other. Samsung LSI (design) is blaming Samsung Foundry, while Samsung Mobile is blaming S.LSI. The link in this paragraph doesn’t actually have anything about them blaming each other. > that the foundry is even allegedly lying about the yields The link here also doesn’t say anything about “lying”. It says they will do a diagnosis/audit around the low yield problem. I didn’t bother clicking on all the links. But some links are right but kinda erodes the trust in the article when this is happening.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
tomatowurst 4y ago
My suspicion also, they outright quoted a rumor mill forum post here: https://meeco.kr/mini/34835643 https://meeco.kr/mini/34835643 Someone reading that article might have walked away with the impression that Samsung's collapse is imminent, which seems to be the narrative often touted on the internet circles by people with some type of stake in TSMC or its allied subsidiaries. "Clients and employees of SemiAnalysis may hold positions in companies referenced in this article." I mean from the authors disclaimer here we can see why the article reads like some Zerohedge article. I hope the author can afford expensive lawyers because there's just no way Samsung is going to let the author off the hook, they've gone after journalists for way less.

creakingstairs 4y ago

I’m sure toxic culture is one of the reasons for Samsung falling behind. But I don’t think that can be a sufficient cause. If toxic culture is the reason for the recent slip up, how has Samsung grown before the slip up when it was arguably even more toxic?

oriolid 4y ago
I recently ran into political science term "pockets of efficiency", which is used to explain why some part of a large corrupt organization (originally state, but I don't see why a giant corporation would be different) can work efficiently. I suspect Samsung used to have a lot of these, because they have manufactured a lot of terrible consumer products but still somehow they have had financial success and their components can be found in decent products too.
- creakingstairs 4y ago
  Interesting. I’ll look that up! My theory is that toxic culture worked when Samsung was mostly playing catch up (before 2010 ish) to existing products/ technologies. But now they need to innovate, and toxicity is crushing and driving away creative people.
  - oriolid 4y ago
    Now that you mentioned early 2000s, at the time I was shopping for a LCD display. At the time Eizo was the go-to brand for good screens, and they used Samsung panels. As a poor just graduated programmer I bought the Samsung with the same VA panel that Eizo used, and it was awful in ways I would never expect a display could be.

ksec 4y ago

I have written something similar on Semiwiki in 2016 arguing against Daniel how Samsung had problems. And my bet in ~2018 that Samsung wont be able to compete against TSMC turns out to be completely right. It wasn't because I had any technical or insider information. It was only because I knew Samsung, the company, its character and its culture far too well. Unfortunately Google and the internal search function doesn't show up and I can't quote myself back. But the problem isn't internal communication though. It was Samsung Foundry's "sales and marketing" over promise and under deliver. To give them credit they were throwing insane amount of money trying to compete with TSMC. People on HN / Reddit / SemiWiki or whatever forum keep asking why TSMC isn't raising price. Well you should thank Samsung for that. ( But they are also the ones who HN / Reddit / Internet accuse them of NAND / DRAM cartel, guess where those profits went? ). I also think the DRAM and NAND concern are overblown. It has been well known Samsung took the bet to move forward with EUV earlier than other industry vendors aka SK Hynix and Micron. It is not like Micron is going to go straight to EUV and enjoy the advantage over Samsung. Samsung are also not moving forward with EUV on their NAND product. The only concern would be if Micron decided to increase their capacity and build new Fabs. Otherwise, just like any other commodities ( Corn, Steel, Lumber, whatever ), they are Supply and Demand limited. So from a technical perspective they may be losing, from a business perspective things are still within control. In case anyone wants to compare this to Intel's 14nm, the two are extremely different and their market operate in a completely different manner. Hence why TSMC's founder and ex-CEO Morris Cheung famously said he will never enter NAND and DRAM market.

throwaway201025 4y ago

As a Samsung employee, I've been continuously being disappointed by the company culture. Recently, the company introduced a new policy that prohibits phone usage while walking inside the company building, due to "safety concerns". Samsung employed ~20 safety guards to supervise and monitor phone usage throughout the campus and if you're caught by them, you will be warned. If you are caughted twice, your team lead will be notifed of the incident. If you are caught three times or more, you are required to watch an educational video and submit a written apology. I could not believe such a policy could emerge from the very company that makes smartphones. Samsung even had a TV commercial highlighting phone usage on the road! Under such a restrictive and top-down culture like this, I believe nothing interesting can emerge. I can only expect the downfall of the company. Nowadays I'm trying to work as little as possible and desperately searching for other jobs.

xattt 4y ago
> … submit a written apology. What the hell kind of mentality is this? I’ve been in a workplace that cracked down on phone use. Everyone was pissed. I considered carrying a small block of wood painted black in act of subversion.
- zinekeller 4y ago
  > What the hell kind of mentality is this? sighs Traditional Asian mentality. I, and definitely many others, hate it, but it's definitely not just Samsung.
- djmips 4y ago
  I had to do worse than that when I worked for a Japanese company (with a Korean-Japanese president). I was forced by him to apologize to the entire assembled staff for a 'big mistake that I had made'. Except it wasn't really my mistake it was a foundry change which caused a timing change that affected the code in a vendor's startup for a chip we were using. I was so burned out from crunching on the project (14 hour days) to reverse engineer and fix it fast enough for the president to be happy...
  - 4y ago

EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 4y ago

After reading this lengthy article, was anyone able to comprehend, what exactly are the "cultural issues"?

tomcam 4y ago

> Samsung also had a GPU team that they canned. That feels… counterintuitive, if true.

xyzzy21 4y ago

A non-trivial factor in this: • Samsung: conglomerate Chaebol that includes of 50% revenue from shipping and ship-building, and then insurance, finance, travel, consume appliances, and finally smart phones and semiconductors which are minority revenue source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaebol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaebol https://www.slashgear.com/831286/10-rare-samsung-products-you-probably-didnt-know-existed/ https://www.slashgear.com/831286/10-rare-samsung-products-yo... • TSMC: single product company - foundry only • Apple: "single product" company (compared to Samsung) There is the Asian cultural side of it even for TSMC so it has many of the same top-down management issues. But the key difference is focus. Taiwanese businesses are pretty much never Chaebol/Kieretsu-like - it's far more atomized, independent and interdependent, and focused on a narrow(er) market. There's also more "bottom-up" in terms of origins and this remains to some extent in many of them (I work for a Taiwanese firm that bought my most recent company - and we work with direct competitors when it makes sense market-wise - that pretty much never happens with between Chaebols/Kieretsus. We also have a pretty selective market niche). Compare this to Japanese kieretsu companies such as NEC - which is similarly broad but you also don't think of them anymore when it comes to semiconductor and especially DRAM. Chaebols and Kieretsus are very similar in that they are conglomerates so they are broad with many unrelated businesses and not very agile especially since decision making is top-down. A key difference is Kieretsus are more likely to be top-down BEFORE and AFTER bottom-up consensus cycle - though that's a predilection based on organizational structure. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keiretsu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keiretsu The example the article gives of Hynix proves that it's possible to be a Chaebol yet give enough free rein to business units to make good decisions. But it can work against as well. Another factor with Samsung: their shipping business has taken major hits in the last 5-7 years. Which given that is 50% of their revenue, probably still diverts proper executive attentions away from semiconductor and cell phones resulting is fiat decisions not based on good data. https://thediplomat.com/2016/06/south-koreas-shipbuilding-crisis/ https://thediplomat.com/2016/06/south-koreas-shipbuilding-cr...

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

tomjohn22 4y ago

tomjohn223 4y ago

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]