Jonghoon Oh, Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) is leading GSM at SK hynix. Throughout the interview, he listened attentively to the questions and replied with much enthusiasm and care, as if treating his customers.

Business Designer Responsible from A to Z of the Value Chain

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GSM is an organization that seeks to grow together with customers by leading commercial and technical partnerships while enhancing customer value. Internally, its role is to present the highest level of competitive product portfolios and roadmaps based on a product-oriented business system. Moreover, in addition to capturing the changes of the external environment one step ahead and proactively reflecting customer needs, GSM is also responsible for identifying new opportunities and preparing for business innovation to ensure a sustainable growth for SK hynix.

In particular, due to Covid-19, communications with customers have been restricted on many fronts, resulting in a range of factors affecting GSM’s operations. However, GSM is a significant contributor to the successful performance of SK hynix based on its long-standing trusted relationship built with customers.

“The reason why SK hynix is performing well despite pandemic is thanks to the efforts made by all SK hynix members who have remained committed to continued development and production to maintain the highest level of product and quality competitiveness. In addition, a strong relationship built between GSM and customers over a long period of time have also been a great support. This trust could be built because all GSM members put customer convenience first and did not neglect communication even under contact-free environment. All SK hynix members, including GSM, deserve to be proud to have delivered their promise to the customers.”

Oh defined the recent semiconductor industry environment as the “age of hyper uncertainty” in which unexpected issues such as the prolonged Covid-19, global trade disputes, fire and power outages, and water shortages can occur at any time. Accordingly, he explained that he is mobilizing efforts to improve understanding of the overall industrial ecosystem to which customers belong.

“All industries, including semiconductors undergoing “the age of hyper uncertainty”, have experienced that the global supply chain (GSC) can be disrupted at any time. In the future, companies are expected to shift their appropriate inventory level management policies from a “just in time” to “just in case” approach. However, in the semiconductor memory industry, it is difficult to increase production in a short period of time even if large-scale investments are made, and it is not easy to identify customers’ exaggerated demand. There is also a lot of uncertainties in terms of demand because IT devices such as smartphones, PCs, and servers cannot be produced if there is a lack of other components even if memory is sufficient in the market. So, GSM is focused on increasing not only “market intelligence” but also “eco intelligence” of the overall customer ecosystem.”

He also explained that GSM is working hard to strengthen sales and marketing capabilities to proactively respond to market changes.

“Sales focuses on customer’s voice and works on the bottom-up delivery of such information, leading the business strategy to work. Marketing works to deliver a top-down view of the market and customers, supporting and checking sales activities while trying to seek a balance.”

“In addition to clearly understanding the requirements and pain points of the customers, GSM plans to take a step further to boost its sales capabilities to create social values with customers and create examples of win-win growth. In order to improve marketing capabilities, GSM supports activities that can improve data-driven predictability. Moreover, we are working hard to expand marketing-driven activities that actively create market demand based on our product strategy from the product planning stage. Promotions to expand the high-capacity Dual In-Line Memory Module (DIMM) and Multi-Chip Package (MCP) markets and co-marketing based on DDR5 partnering with CPU companies are meaningful outcomes.”

Oh went on to stress the importance of stepping out of the comfort zone and increasing “business agility” across the company and presented the on-going changes taking place at SK hynix.

“Will strengthening our sales and marketing capabilities alone help us rise above the wave of “hyper uncertainty”? I don’t think so. We need to strengthen our sales/marketing capabilities, but also further strengthen our enterprise-wide “business agility” and “collaborative competitiveness”. In fact, we are leveraging these capabilities as driving forces to overcome many challenges. It is very difficult to change the product portfolio and efficiently manage components inventory at SK hynix, which has a complex product system. In particular, if the product mix changes, it takes a certain amount of time to implement it. Amidst the said challenges, GSM was quick to change its mix based on prompt judgment, and all organizations in the company responded quickly by flexibly coordinating production/development/investment operations according to revised sales plans. Given the fact that the global production system is spread across Icheon-Cheongju-Wuxi-Chongqing, it is indeed a very proud achievement.”

However, we will continue to expand the semiconductor production facility (FAB) such as Yongin Cluster in South Korea. As products and solutions diversify, the wave of change ahead of us will continue to rise, just like the number of components needed. As a result, GSM intends to advance G-SCM (Global Supply Chain Management) and further develop and evolve “business agility”. G-SCM is SK hynix’s unique operating system in which we enter a sales plan according to customer and market demand forecast and, accordingly, obtain an optimal supply plan based on a company-wide production capacity. To this end, we are strengthening cooperation with existing sales/marketing organizations after incorporating GPO (Global Planning Office), which is the implementation arm of G-SCM operation, into GSM this year. We expect that this will enable us to establish and implement a production/inventory strategy based on market forecasting and sales strategies and develop a coherent production/investment plan.”

In addition to increasing internal operational efficiency, Oh is going at great lengths to prepare for the future. As part of such effort, the Memory Systems R&D organization was integrated into GSM last year, contributing to increase synergy with the existing product planning organization.

“Memory Systems R&D is a group of technology experts capable of understanding systems and cloud solutions from customers’ perspective. It is expected to complement the strength of the product planning organization viewing system changes from a memory perspective, to observe changes in memory from a system perspective, and to create synergies by contemplating the value of memory or its solutions.

Whereas the product planning organization looks ahead three to five years, Memory Systems R&D looks further ahead and expands the role of semiconductor memory into the realm of artificial intelligence (AI) and data analytics solutions. It is also expected to actively partner with outside players to become a pathfinder in seeking new growth opportunities and a pioneer in driving open innovation while achieving high performance.”

Mem4EST, a “Cartographer” Envisioning Memory-Centric Future

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In order to present the direction and vision of the organization and remind the members of how valuable and important their work is, Oh recently defined GSM’s identity as a “leader developing business and technological cooperation with global customers.”

In addition, he defines the roles of GSM members as follows and presented clear tasks thereof: △ “Enterprise business leaders” building company-wide consensus on business strategy and leading its implementation △ “Outposts for business competitiveness” presenting product/customer-centric business systems and development roadmap △ “Pathfinder and pioneer” identifying the future changes and leading the markets.

In particular, Oh believes that the current computing environment will evolve into a “memory-centric system” in the near future and explained that he is closely monitoring the changes in market and technological trends as pathfinder and pioneer in preparing for the future growth.

“An explosion of data has opened up the data era, and there is a repeated cycle of massive amounts of data being processed and reproduced. Today, it has become increasingly important to analyze data and create values. If such trends continue, they will inevitably lead to changes in computing architecture, which is likely to significantly transform the role of systems and memory.”

“The more data you have to store, the more it becomes impossible to store all data in the conventional memory. This introduces a new layer of memory, such as Storage-Class Memory (SCM) and Capacity Memory, to minimize the performance degradation of existing memory. The frequency of use or the value of ownership determines in which tier the data will be stored. Data security technology also becomes important. As transferring vast amounts of data itself will require an unnegligible amount of time and energy consumption, there will also be demand created for memory expansion layers that provide adequate performance and high capacity. Furthermore, there will be a trend of processing or analyzing data in memory or storage itself.”

“The current CPU-centric computing method is being differentiated into xPU-based computing methods such as GPU (Graphic Processing Unit), DPU (Data Processing Unit), ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuit), and FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array), etc. The fiercer the competition among xPU companies, the greater the role of memory solutions that can provide differentiated performance competitiveness. I think this will ultimately open up the memory-centric era.”

At the core of such transformation, Oh proposed “Mem4EST initiatives” as GSM’s new vision based on its commitment to “protect the environment and continuously develop society through technological innovation.” “Mem4EST” stands for Memory for E (Environment), S (Society), with Technology (T) or can also be interpreted as “Memory Forest,” referring to a single ecosystem or forest consisting of semiconductor memories.

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“Memory Forest represents how different layers of memory form a computing architecture, just like a forest, where everything from the bottom like the ground, grass to dense trees, fulfill their respective roles to form a huge eco-system. Forests are generally, from bottom to top, divided into forest floor, understory, canopy layer, and emergent layer.¹ These layers are naturally comparable to those of the computing architecture such as SSD (Solid State Drive), SCM (Storage-Class Memory), high-capacity memory (Capacity Memory), main memory and IPM (In Package Memory).”

“In other words, at the very bottom of Memory Forest, there is data lake, a group of raw data located in SSDs. It is also where SK hynix’s pledge to significantly reduce carbon emissions by replacing HDDs is delivered. On top of that, CXL (Computing Express Link)-based Storage Class Memory and main memory such as DDR5, and IPMs such as HBM (High Bandwidth Memory) are sequentially located.”

“Among others, we anticipate that there will be significant opportunities for solution products that have recently enabled memory expansion and acceleration, using a recently standardized protocol interface called CXL. As such, in each area, it is possible to implement a variety of memory products based on performance, capacity and add-ons, which will not only increase the size of the memory business, but also create a market of NDP (Near Data Processing) where the needed computing functions will be executed on the storage device where the data is located. Eventually, diverse semiconductor memories will play their respective roles in each layer and grow together to develop an ecosystem called ICT forests.”

The green image of the forest is also associated with eco-friendliness. “Mem4EST (Memory Forest)” also reflects the commitment of SK hynix to establish itself as an eco-friendly company in the semiconductor industry, thereby focusing more on creating social values.

“Until now, we have focused on selling memory products to customers and taking responsibility for quality issues within the warranty period, so we lacked understanding as to how the sold products are used and disposed once their life cycle ends. However, in order to become an eco-friendly leader in the semiconductor industry in the future, it is important to understand a product’s life cycle and minimize wasted or discarded products. If we can collect products used by customers and partially recycle them rather than simply discarding them, we will be able to delay the construction of new facilities and save investments in facilities.”

“There is also an idea to reduce waste of manufactured products and create recycling opportunities. As memory layers branch out, not all IT devices require the highest quality DRAM produced at high yield rate. Capacity Memory Extension (CME), which is somewhat slower than highly-performing DRAMs, but are relatively inexpensive per bit and deliver high capacities, can be a reasonable alternative. MDS (Managed DRAM Solution) with defect bit relief capability may allow for the use of partially defective or potentially defective products. As such, technological innovation can play a big role in raising both economic and social values simultaneously. Mem4EST also embodies such commitment to continue to identify similar applications and deliver ESG values.”

Oh is currently focusing on sharing this vision with the colleagues and building a consensus. Once the process is completed, Oh plans to align “Mem4EST” with the company-wide financial story and brand it.

“Navigator” Sailing Towards Growth and Happiness of Members Around the World

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Oh joined Hyundai Electronics in 1987 as a DRAM design engineer. He helped the company to successfully develop 4Mb (Megabit) DRAM for the first time by using in-house design. Since then, Oh worked as product planning director, head of DRAM design division, head of DRAM development business, and is currently leading SK hynix’s transformation and innovation as vice president of GSM and an in-house board director.

What motivated Oh to become so successful for a long time and remain one of the leaders driving SK hynix’s growth? He cited “initial commitment” and “passion” as his secret.

“At every major inflection point in my career, I always renewed my resolution and plans amidst expectations and concerns about new changes. That is my initial commitment, and whenever I faced difficulties or challenges, I thought of my initial resolutions and plans. Every time I did that, I was filled with passion again. This act of awakening my “initial resolution” has been a key enabler for sustaining passion.”

He also mentioned that it was a shame to have less opportunities to communicate directly with overseas employees due to Covid-19 and saluted their hard work.

“GSM has many members who are thriving in overseas branches across the United States, China, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, India, Germany, and the United Kingdom. It’s a pity that I cannot meet and encourage them in person who are struggling in various parts of the world. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the members of overseas branches for doing their best to support customers with perfection while protecting their health and that of their families in the unprecedented working environment of Covid-19. I look forward to seeing them more often once the pandemic will be over soon. I would also like to thank the in-house Covid-19 TF for not forgetting to tend to the needs of branches abroad.”

When asked what kind of leader he would like to be, Oh answered, “a leader who leads by example.”

“I believe that every leader’s goal is to become a role model for his members by leading by example. There is a saying that comes to mind whenever I face difficulties. It’s “the devil is in the detail”, which means that problems arise from very small and specific matters, so we always have to look into things more closely. The phrase is used to emphasize a situation where things may seem simple at first, but in fact requires a lot of time and effort than expected. Semiconductors is quite an honest field in that its outcome equals the accumulated sum of input time and capability. Therefore, leaders in the semiconductor industry should achieve success by demonstrating their “never give up attitude” and “relentless challenging spirit” to the members.”

“Another virtue of a true leader is to have a “mid-to long-term vision”. A leader should think strategically about investing in the 30 years of their employees rather than his/her own 3 years, driving the company’s mid- to long-term transformation and laying the foundation for its future growth.”

Oh also confides that at times he can lose his calm and get too paranoid about work as he strives to lead by example as a leader. And it makes him wonder whether he is requiring too much discipline for the leaders working in affiliated organizations.

“I am always concerned that I might be seen as a cold and difficult leader because I always try to be a very responsible and accountable, striving to become best-in-class in my field. Pandemic has taught me once again about the importance of my colleagues. Going forward, I would like to be warmer and more compassionate toward other members as their mentor and peer.”

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Lastly, Oh proposed a keyword he wanted to emphasize to stakeholders.

“I’d like to point to “pursuit of happiness through win-win strategy”. As Head of GSM, I dream about the future of SK hynix in which it grows together with customers rather than growing alone. Going forward, SK hynix will continue to do its best to build more trust as customers’ friend, partner, and collaborator.”

¹A forest consists largely of an underground space with plant roots, a forest floor with plants less than 0.15 meters high, an understory with plants less than 5 meters high, a canopy layer with trees over 5 m high forming the roof of the forest, and an emergent layer with a very few high trees, which is formed after protruding from the canopy layer.

The post Looking Beyond the Age of Hyper Uncertainty: Jonghoon Oh, Head of GSM first appeared on SK hynix Newsroom.

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Celebrating his 30th work anniversary with SK hynix this year, Juseon (Justin) Kim has seen the company through three decades of growth, change and evolution.

Starting in February 1991 as a member of the Semiconductor FAB production team at Hyundai Electronics, Justin has worked his way through nearly every one of the company’s departments in the intervening years.

Over the years, he has dealt with issues of international trade for the Global Sales and Marketing (GSM) team, worked in finance on the Accounting team, and moved through every function of the Sales division from Sales and Planning to Sales Operations. In 2017, he assumed the position of Head of Sales Division for GSM, where he spent three years before ultimately landing in his current role as CEO of SK hynix America.

“When I retrospect my 30 years in SK hynix, I think I’ve worked at every different department except HR and Procurement. All departments take important roles of the business and all members are connected to make a great value of the company. With that said, this great value brings great performance too. We all should remember each and every one of us is very important and valuable in making an impact here at SK hynix.”

Persistence & Personability

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As an experienced coordinator who loves jogging, persistence is one of Justin’s most valued attributes which brought him here throughout the past three decades. Such talent is no doubt a best chance for SK hynix America to navigate through an era full of volatilities, and as a newly appointed head of SK hynix America, Justin certainly has his own roadmap to fulfill SK hynix’s SUPEX spirit.

“I am confident that the US office will continuously grow but there will be a growth pain at the same time. Currently our goal is to develop agile and dynamic corporate culture. We also need to close the cultural differences and different backgrounds. I hope the US office create great corporate culture and become a role model to other companies in Silicon Valley.”

* SUPEX: Stands for “Super Excellent Level,” which means the highest level attainable by human ability.

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The secret to Kim’s success, it seems, is a dynamic mix of tenacious persistence and a people-first attitude. Among his many achievements at the company, one particular triumph stands out.

“One of my memorable moments was the historical sales record in 2018, when I worked as a head of Sales in GSM. At that time, we worked very hard to make contracts with big customers and overcame the technical gap over the competitors. The market condition was good but most of all, it was our members’ full support to make such historical performance.”

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A self-described extrovert, Justin is just as committed to the happiness and wellbeing of the people of SK hynix as he is with the quality of the products they make. This attitude has allowed him to create meaningful, long-lasting relationships with employees and customers alike that create a shared sense of trust and value.

“I am an extroverted person who loves to hang out with people. The best part of my job is to meet customers… There is no doubt that keeping a long and strategic relationship with customers is one of the most important things in business. Good relationships lead to an increase of market share. When we face an over-supply situation, these customers make return of gratitude by picking us as their prior supplier.”

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During the pandemic, this level of connection and collaboration became more difficult – Justin led the company towards a remote work model that gracefully bridged the gaps brought on by remote work. As the country tiptoes back into post-pandemic life, Justin is looking forward to the phased reopening of the office and the opportunity to meet with customers in person once again.

“Recently, we started our phased reopening of the office as the pandemic situation has improved drastically after the vaccination administration. Our US office will be fully open by the end of September. Our customers are slowly going back to normal as well. I am very excited to meet customers outside of California from next week.”

Success in the States

SK hynix America Sales Team participating in a volunteering event with their CEO Justin and HPE

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With company experience both in Korea and in the United States, Justin brings a unique, cross-cultural perspective to the seat of CEO in the Americas. During his first six months in the role, he has remarked on the unique strengths and opportunities of the organization – handling not only sales and marketing, but also business development like Venture Investment, CMOS image sensor (CIS) and Government Relations (GR) which is almost everything except production.

Beyond the business model, he has been equally impressed with the team’s abilities and culture that make it unique, noting that “a mixed organization of excellent talents from Silicon Valley and expats from Korea creates great synergy.”

“We have overcome many cultural difficulties and gained potential energy. We are a harmonized group of people beyond different backgrounds and culture. SK hynix America is recognized as the most trusted memory supplier among customers and our competence in business/products is growing every year. Being in California is a great strength, too. We enjoy a terrific environment and weather all year and benefit being close to other leading tech companies. I also appreciate that HQ supports our business in many ways.”

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The Path Ahead

As the semiconductor landscape continues to grow and evolve, Justin is confident that SK hynix America will adapt right alongside it. He intends to lead the company not only towards business expansion, but also towards future business potentials, R&D investments and ESG activities that will help it compete with other leading companies in Silicon Valley.

“Walls and limits between industries are disappearing. More and more companies with different backgrounds collaborate each other to make new. I hope SK hynix America keeps up its good work that one day it will lead collaborations with customers and other people to pioneer new ways for happiness and prosperity.”

The post Executive Perspective: Justin Kim on his role as Head of SK hynix America first appeared on SK hynix Newsroom.

SK hynix’s DT-Based Innovation in the “Way of Working”

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In today’s era of big data, many companies are now able to discover the value of data that was not measured in the past or analyze an enormous amount of data that they would not have dared to analyze previously.
What is being emphasized to enhance operational efficiency by utilizing the insights obtained through collected and processed data, as well as to effectively seek new business opportunities, is DT. SK hynix is also making a lot of effort centering on the Digital Transformation (DT) organization to innovate the way of working based on the IT system. At the forefront of such changes, Song is leading the innovation of SK hynix.

“As all companies are now starting to focus on DT, companies that discover new insights through successful DT, and further develop, utilize them will have more opportunities to take the lead. We will do our best to perform DT so that SK hynix can seize such opportunities without falling behind in the competition.”

To successfully perform DT, simultaneous innovation in various aspects should be made. These aspects include efficient data collection and analysis, system and infrastructure establishment, and business process optimization. In particular, one of the core tasks of the DT organization is to systematically collect and efficiently process the enormous amount of big data accumulated through the semiconductor business to utilize it in the field.

“In the semiconductor manufacturing environment where technology is becoming more advanced than before, the ability to efficiently collect and analyze data is essential not only to enhance the semiconductor product competitiveness itself, but also to bring innovation in business overall. In this sense, we are strengthening the role of Data Science (DS) organization to discover valuable data and apply it to overall business to establish an environment that enables quick and accurate decision-making.

We also have built an infrastructure environment for Hadoop, a technology that processes large amounts of data by joining multiple computers as if they were one to collect data generated from various production facilities. Along with this, we have also prepared ‘Data Lake’, a database platform useful for retrieval, acquisition, algorithm development, and learning of collected data based on Hadoop. Also, ‘Master Data’ has been reorganized for efficient data collection and analysis, and various tasks are being performed for innovation in the field, mainly for automation and advancement of the manufacturing process.”

Song also emphasized the importance of “cloud migration” to secure the system and infrastructure necessary for smooth DT execution. With the advancement of technology including technology migration, the amount of data generated at semiconductor manufacturing sites is becoming tremendous. Under these circumstances, a cloud-based operational environment can increase cost and operational efficiency compared to an IT environment solely based on local server devices, as well as providing agility and expandability to the business. Accordingly, SK hynix has partially introduced and is utilizing a private cloud platform. Furthermore, SK hynix is responding to changes by promoting cooperation with many cloud service providers to accelerate the company-wide cloud transformation.

“For a semiconductor company where industrial security is important and processes are automated, introducing a cloud environment is very difficult. Nevertheless, to secure the reliability of the future IT infrastructure and the flexibility of the software to promptly respond to requests from the field, cloud transformation is necessary. We will continue to make efforts to ensure that numerous systems currently in operation can co-work organically and efficiently in the cloud environment, as well as stably introduce and settle the optimized cloud system.”

SK hynix started operating its M16 plant earlier this year and is preparing to build a semiconductor cluster in Yongin, South Korea for continuous growth and further strengthening the overall semiconductor ecosystem. The company-wide efforts are required for the efficient operation of these expanding production sites and the stabilization of the production system. As part of that, the DT organization has successfully stabilized the M16 at an early stage this year and is now concentrating on the advancement of the production automation system in the long term.

“In the case of M16 plant, the system architecture has been improved to a platform-based flexible service structure so that it can be expanded to the Yongin cluster in the future. We are expanding automation to ensure that each engineering task as well as production operation can be performed smoothly within this platform. In addition to increasing the system flexibility, we will accelerate the advancement and prepare for the future so that a more agile system can be applied to the Yongin cluster through the technology accumulation.”

Meanwhile, the DT organization is currently establishing a company-wide system called Product Lifecycle Management (PLM). The ultimate goal of the PLM establishment is to secure the integrity of the company-wide business process by integrating internal systems that have been operated differently by each organization, and removing such silos which have been hindering communication between teams.

“Some systems were developed on demand when needed, so they are not easily linked with each other. As a result, important data often goes missing or it takes a long time to obtain the necessary data. To solve such problems, we are currently building the PLM system that connects the entire process encompassing product planning, development, manufacturing, and sales into one system in connection with each business unit. When the end-to-end visibility is secured through PLM, decision-making and execution are expected to become much more agile.”

A Pathfinder for Success

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With his previous career at SK Telecom until 2011, Song joined SK hynix in 2012. Since then, he has led future strategy and marketing at SK hynix and is currently leading the IT-based structural improvement of SK hynix based on his unique insight and broad understanding of the company.

“Back in the time, SK hynix was a company with great talents like now, playing an important role in the global economy. However, I thought the employees were underestimating themselves after going through difficult times. I wanted to create an environment where the employees can work with pride while increasing their self-esteem, and I think I have contributed to some extent to make SK hynix have such environment.”

Song also explained in detail how to be the best in the semiconductor industry, showing his earnest wish that SK hynix and its employees have desperate urge and solidify their will to be the best.

“Semiconductors are manufactured through a working “method” by investing “money” in “man”, “machine”, and “(raw) materials” – 5M in other words. Among these, we can assume competitors are under similar conditions in regard of equipment (machine) and raw materials. Ultimately, it is important to secure differentiated competitiveness in human resources (man), finance (money), and the way of working (method). To get ahead of competitors and take the lead, we need to optimize our unique way of working that organically connects man, machine, and materials to increase efficiency. This requires know-how in development and manufacturing, but it is also an area where the DT capabilities shine. We will successfully perform this role through close cooperation with the field organizations.”

To achieve this goal, Song presented three keywords of “Innovation”, “Internal Stability”, and “One DT” to members of the DT organization.

“To secure the highest level of DT competency, our solution should incorporate the most advanced technologies, and what is required for this is innovation. Innovation is also called the ‘product of deficiency’. I think it is important to find what we lack and work hard to improve it.

Enhancing internal stability is the task to be performed first to secure the resources needed for innovation. Innovation requires a lot of resources, but we cannot input limitless resources. As such, we need to strengthen the internal stability of our manpower, infrastructure, and so on, to ensure that the best results can be achieved with the optimal resource disposition.

‘One DT’ implies seamless collaboration between different organizations based on functional integrity. Since organizations of SK hynix are clearly divided by their function, when you are in charge of a certain job, you must complete it flawlessly and then deliver it to the next colleague. That is what I always emphasize to my team members as well.”

At the same time, Song has brought a big change to the DT organization this year to practically raise the capabilities of its members. Functional expertise was enhanced by separating the process integration (PI) work and development/operation work, while also deployed both the PI and data science (DS) organizations forward in the field. Along with this, Song is also working on bringing field members to the DT organization to solve practical problems in the field together, and sending them back to their original position so that they can further spread their DS know-how after returning to their own team.

“DS competency is not the only thing required for DT organization’s members in solving problems occurring in the semiconductor industry. Likewise, semiconductor experts in the field also need to have a certain level of DS competency for smooth collaboration, in addition to domain knowledge. To succeed in DT by utilizing high-quality data obtained from the semiconductor industry, versatile talents with both DS competency and domain knowledge are essential.

To secure such talents, we dispatch DS experts in the DT organization to the field to build expertise while bringing field engineers with domain knowledge to the DT organization to train them. We aim to train around 1,000 Citizen Data Scientists (CDSs: in-field data analysis experts) by 2023.”

A Pioneer of the “Happiness of Employees”

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The ultimate goal of DT is to increase work efficiency based on data and enable a quick and accurate decision-making process. At the same time, however, realizing the happiness of employees by making the way of working more rational and efficient is also one of the important goals. In this respect, Song is also considering the “happiness” of members as one of his main priorities.

In particular, as an organization that is leading the innovation in the way of working at SK hynix, the DT organization has a different way of working and organizational culture from other organizations. Based on the respect for this, Song gives sufficient trust to the members, while motivating them by emphasizing their “professionalism”.

“Considering the nature of the job at the DT organization, where high-quality results must be delivered by a deadline requested by fellow colleagues, results are more important than working hours. I believe that if I show trust to members and give them autonomy, they will respond accordingly and show great working attitudes. Accordingly, I strive to establish a flexible working environment, as well as an atmosphere that respects individual autonomy as much as possible.”

Environment, social, and governance (ESG) management is emerging as a new topic for companies these days. Song defined ESG as “pursuing a happy future for all through sustainable growth”, explaining that the DT organization is also developing the foundation to contribute to the ESG management.

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“The reason why sustainability has recently become a major talking point is that people seek sustainable growth while the resources on the earth are limited. That is, there is a fear that we would run out of resources someday in the future. Solving this is not that difficult. What we need to do is reducing the amount of resources required to do the same thing. For example, if something that had to be done with 10,000 servers can be done with 5,000 servers, it can save electricity required for operating extra 5,000 servers. Developing low-power semiconductors for the global environment is also based on the expectation of such effects.

In fact, minimizing resource consumption and streamlining the way of working is not much different from what all companies have been doing until today. What’s different is just the methods of “how” we work have become more advanced as more tools became available, such as IT technology and data. Therefore, the essence of DT is “Back to the Basic”. I believe that if we maximize the efficiency of work through DT, the ESG value will be met naturally in the end.”

The post A Journey to the World’s Best through IT Innovation first appeared on SK hynix Newsroom.

“Complete Memory Solutions” With Precise Packaging and Strict Testing

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P&T stands for package and test, one of the back-end procedures of the broader semiconductor production process. During this process, wafers completed in the front-end procedure are packaged before delivery to the customers and the products go through the final test to ensure that the quality meets customer expectations. Even if a high level of quality is secured at the wafer level, there can be errors or defects depending on different customer settings. That’s why the process of completing wafers as a product and enhancing the reliability by taking into account the different circumstances of each customer is just as important as the one for product development and mass-production in fabs.

“Fab and P&T are deeply related. None of these two is less important to complete the best quality and meet customer expectations. We pay a lot of attention on communication with the fab to proactively respond to any possible issues. That is critical to faithfully fulfill the common goal of securing the utmost manufacturing competitiveness.”

One of the top priorities for the P&T team is securing technological capabilities that the market requires to boost the value of memory products.
P&T’s role was critical for SK hynix to preoccupy the market for the high-bandwidth memory (HBM), or the fastest memory available. Only those with advanced technologies and mass-production capabilities can preoccupy the market given the structure of the market. SK hynix became one of the pioneers in the market by demonstrating its capability to mass-produce HBM2E in 2019 and took over the premium memory market by initiating mass-production in full scale in July 2020.

Since the launch of the world’s first HBM in 2013, the company has made various attempts to improve product performance. This was possible thanks to P&T’s commitment for quality improvement through the innovative Wafer Level Package¹ technology.

“As for the HBM3’s next generation, we aim to differentiate from others in the area of high-capacity products by enhancing the speed and stacking technology. We’re particularly keen to develop equipment, special materials and process technology for this.”

Other than the cutting-edge technologies like HBM, the P&T is also continuing development of the “conventional packaging technology,” or capability to stack as many dies as possible within a package.

“Changes are gaining speed, while customers want even higher technologies over time. In one example, the NAND capacity for the latest flagship smartphones is around 256-512 gigabytes (GB), but likely to increase to 1-2 terabytes (TB) on the same density for the next-generation models. Our goal is to cut the height of a single die to below 30㎛, while increasing the number of layers, currently at eight, to 16-32 for technology competitiveness.”

With customer demands diversifying, the proportion of customized memory is increasing as well, making it more important to secure the capability to thoroughly test even the smallest specifications.

As the company accelerates its efforts to boost environmental, social and governance values as part of the broader SK Group’s “Financial Story” campaign aimed at boosting the total corporate value, Hong is also looking at ways to run the P&T manufacturing in line with the ESG management.

“For environment, we’re seeking to shift to eco-friendly materials and components, while reducing energy consumption and minimizing pollutant emissions. For example, we could save costs and reduce waste by improving the equipment for chip-making processes to replace some chemicals with eco-friendly materials. We are looking forward to finding more ways to create both economic and social values at the same time ahead.”

Leading the Way to Success

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Since joining what’s formerly known as Hyundai Electronics Industries in 1986, Hong has gone through both exciting and discouraging moments of the company and now, as SK hynix thrives as one of the best semiconductor companies in the world, he is full of emotions.

“I am so grateful and relieved. We’ve come through some real difficult times such as the 1997-98 Asia financial crisis, restructuring by creditors and the 2008 global financial crisis. But look what we’ve achieved now. We’re a leading chipmaker in the world and worth over 100 trillion won in the stock market. I hope we continue to prosper, leaving all the troubles we’ve had in the past behind.”

“As one of the early members of SK hynix, I’m full of pride and confidence, but also feel heavy responsibility. Look at all the challenges we’re facing ahead. In the times of digital transformation of the 4th industrial revolution, we should successfully develop DRAM with sub- 10 nanometer (nm) level and NAND stacking technology further to beyond 600 layers as well as creating social values in the energy and environment fields.”

Innovate the Way of Working

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One of the key goals for P&T this year will be to improve cost competitiveness, remove inefficiencies and bring innovation to the way of working through digital transformation and put the quality of the materials and components under control.

Over the longer term, Hong aims to further maximize the efficiency of the operation with a strategy for global integration should the process of the planned acquisition of Intel’s NAND and SSD business be complete.
Hong believes that digital transformation will accelerate establishment of Smart Factory that quickly reflects customer needs and responds to rapid changes in the industry.

“It is very important to secure the capability to effectively deal with enormous amount of data collected by P&T and build the corporate culture of making decisions based on data.”

With the portion of the younger generation in 20s-30s growing across the P&T, making his department one of the youngest parts of the company, Hong is also making various attempts to narrow potential generation gap among colleagues.

“I think providing the sense of security that you won’t be treated unfairly simply over expression of your opinion is key to communications. It’s particularly important for the younger generation as they are relatively clearer when it comes to expressions and preferences.”

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“Quality” is the keyword that Hong wants to ensure that every stakeholder bears in mind.

“I’ve spent most of my time at work on improving product quality and it’s now all about what I am. Quality of the P&T, the very final stage of the semiconductor production process, leads to that of our customers’ products. For this reason, nothing can be more important than constantly improving the quality to me.

¹Wafer Level Package (WLP) technology: Unlike the conventional method of cutting chips from wafers and packaging them individually, this technology allows wafers to undergo packaging and testing process as a whole before chips are cut, resulting in better performance of the products.

The post [Top TL] P&T Enhances the Value of Memory Solutions: Sang Hoo Hong, Head of P&T first appeared on SK hynix Newsroom.

Kwak also showed his vibrant energy throughout the interview. As a person in charge of an organization that continues to grow day by day, he answered all questions with clear and detailed words. His answer to the last year’s achievements was filled with his pride, and his answer to this year’s plan showed his solid confidence in the bright future of SK hynix.

Production Management Expert Responsible for the SK hynix’s “Yield”

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The most important indicator in semiconductor production is “yield¹,” a factor that has a great influence on profitability. As semiconductor processes are becoming finer and more complicated, managing the yield above a certain level is becoming very difficult. Also, if the yield cannot be raised during the ramp-up process, productivity and quality competitiveness are decreased, no matter how great the developed technology is. While leading the organization in charge of manufacturing and technology, Kwak is playing a key role in managing the “yield” that determines SK hynix’s product competitiveness.

“Most of the SK hynix’s assets are in the fabs. When we can make good use of them, a high level of yield can be achieved. In that sense, the sum of the company’s fab technologies can be defined as the ‘yield’. Therefore, raising this yield to the Best in Class (BIC) level is also a goal that Manufacturing Technology at SK hynix is pursuing all the way.”

“Last year, we’ve seen many unexpected variables because of the COVID-19 crisis. Nevertheless, we’ve solved problems occurring in the supply chain through emergency responses, such as diversifying supply routes and shortening the set-up period of the equipment.

During this process, we’ve reorganized the roadmap for emergency response and prepared a personal manual, by assuming all imaginable crises. Through this, even in the case of a bigger crisis in the future, we are able to respond systematically with the scenarios prepared in advance. This was all possible because of great cooperation from all our members. I’d like to express my gratitude once again for the dedication and sacrifice made by them.”

These efforts have led to the strengthened product competitiveness, raising SK hynix’s status in the market to the next level. Even in the midst of small and big crises, main indicators have improved greatly. The key yield indicators of DRAM and NAND, which had been somewhat weak early last year, have improved significantly in the second half. Also, the mass-production quality of NAND in addition to DRAM, which had already been highly evaluated in the market, has shown a remarkable improvement. As a result, the market and customer evaluations of SK hynix’s products have risen sharply.

“Previously, when the market situation was good, the fab capacity was lacking, resulting in insufficient yield. When the yield was satisfied, however, the market situation worsened again, which made things very difficult. However, this year is different. The market is expected to recover and the new plant M16 will be operated as well. Also, in the existing M15, phase 2 can also be opened when necessary according to the market situation. We should make good use of this great opportunity. I can feel my heart beating with excitement.”

To continue this atmosphere full of promises, Kwak decided this year’s vision of Manufacturing Technology as “SUPEX mass-production technology! Value creation! Happiness together!”. To realize this vision, he presented a new goal of establishing two mid- to long-term plans based on VWBE² covering three years respectively (first plan: current – 2023; second plan: 2024 – 2026) to secure a firm No.1 competitiveness in six years.

“SK hynix’s technology can be largely divided into development-related technology and mass-production-related technology, and Manufacturing Technology is in charge of the latter. What we need to pursue is to reach ‘Super Excellent (SUPEX)’ in the aspect of mass-production technology. Only when that is achieved as a prerequisite, many values such as economic value (EV) and social value (SV) can be created in the future.

I think, in three years, we will be able to approach our highest goal of ‘No.1 competitiveness’, and if we work hard with a goal of another three years from then, we will be able to solidify such competitiveness. We’ve set this goal in the sense of securing an actual and firm No.1 competitiveness, rather than following an unclear slogan.”

Preparation for the post-COVID-19 era is also in progress smoothly. Although the spread of COVID-19 has not stopped yet, there are hopeful predictions that it will start to slow down soon due to the vaccination. In this circumstance, Kwak emphasized the necessity of the efforts to prepare for the future one step ahead.

“To respond to the upcoming opportunities in the post-COVID-19 era, we, Manufacturing Technology at SK hynix, thought that we should not only contribute to the management by producing next-generation products in a timely and competitive manner, but also focus more on strengthening the fundamentals, such as lowering the cost of the products currently being produced.

We need to improve the level of completion in mass-production by collaborating with the development sector. Also, in terms of cost reduction, we need to increase the yield and optimize costs. To achieve this, we will continue to make efforts in the future, such as raising the equipment matching level and establishing a real-time inspection system through automation.”

A Success Planner Designing the Future of the “World’s Best SK hynix”

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Recently, the semiconductor market has been seeing rapid changes and increasingly diversified needs of customers. SK hynix is actively pursuing digital transformation (DT) and changing the way of working to effectively respond to these market changes. The Manufacturing Technology organization has also been working on reorganizing the working environment through continuous innovation since last year. Achieving significant improvement in terms of yield and product quality was also a fruitful result of such efforts.

“Last year was the time for us to make some efforts for reorganizing the working environment. We mainly focused on removing irrational elements and establishing a future direction. For this, we simplified some indicators that unnecessarily overburden the work, providing an environment where employees can fully focus on their own work.”

The Manufacturing Technology organization is the core of the DT pursued by SK hynix. This is because fabs are where the most data is generated within the company. Even at this moment, an enormous amount of data is pouring out from different types of equipment every 0.1 second or less. Kwak said, “The ability to deal with this enormous amount of data determines the company’s ability. The DT level of Manufacturing Technology is directly linked to the quality and yield of the company’s products.”

“In fact, all our members have been carrying out the DT very well. Propelling efficiency in office work allowed us to do much more work in less time. Although the production process is becoming more complicated and demanding, the yield is not just maintained at a certain level, but rather is rising. This is all because the ability to analyze and utilize data in great depth is being secured. It is also because the understanding of the DT is increasing and the capability to leverage it is being accumulated.

We are now focusing on advancing the DT in various ways. We are operating a wide range of exclusive organizations in charge of artificial intelligence (AI) solution, data architecture, and data science and we are also in close collaboration with the DT organization. Also, through collaboration with Gauss Labs (Related article: Interview with Young-Han Kim, CEO of Gauss Labs: “To Overcome Challenges in Manufacturing Industry through AI”), we are realizing aspects of a ‘smart fab’ that will be completed by SK hynix in the future, one by one.”

Kwak, who is improving the structure of Manufacturing Technology through continuous innovation, objectively diagnosed SK hynix’s current status in the industry and shared the thoughts he had, to become the world’s best in all indicators.

“The employees’ capabilities are among the best in the world. They always deliver great results that exceed expectations. Once a goal is set, they show a great sense of responsibility and courage to achieve it with tenacity. Behind this, there is self-sacrifice. This is a virtue that must be respected enough.

There is one more thing I want to add here. The insight. To secure the best status continuously in the semiconductor industry, where fierce global competition is taking place, it is necessary to pursue the attitude of a pioneer who creates something from nothing. The more we approach the No.1 in the industry, the more we should have the insight to think hard and find answers.”

Kwak also emphasized that the company should put more effort into cultivating its human resources to allow the employees to have these capabilities.

“Semiconductor industry is called the equipment industry, but the subject who handles the equipment is people. To make full use of the equipment, the company should invest in people as much as it invests in equipment. No matter how great the equipment is and how good the environment is, the company’s values and capabilities are determined by securing human resources capable of operating the equipment in that environment. To maintain the top position, we need to pay a lot of attention to develop human resources and make efforts.”

In fact, Kwak has been recently making many changes to cultivate human resources within the Manufacturing Technology organization. He first reorganized the training system for each department and then established a standardized training system. The curriculum range has also been extended to include more in-depth content. Last year, “The Self-Improvement Week (SIW)” was also launched. SIW is the time provided by the company during working hours to allow employees to use that time for self-development. A separate space for SIW was also prepared.

“The Manufacturing Technology organization has a fixed delivery date and everything it does is displayed in numbers. I am well aware that the burden that members feel during carrying out their work is great because of this. As the company was growing rapidly, there were also difficulties in having to be put into the field immediately after joining the company. In this kind of work environment, human resources tended to be developed mainly through work. Of course, there are a lot of things they can learn through the work, but the lack of a system was something to be improved.

To improve this aspect, we plan to implement a strategy to secure human resources sooner than when the fab size increases in the entire master plan, provide sufficient training time, and put them into the field. Also, we are trying to secure enough time for employees to focus on their work and to use part of that time for self-development. I am planning to expand the SIW, if the results are good.”

A Leader Who Works in Harmony with Members to Achieve “Field-oriented Management”

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Since joining the company, Kwak has experienced various sectors at SK hynix including the R&D field and production sites. In particular, he made countless achievements in the process of developing micro-processing as a development researcher. Since 2015, he has been in charge of manufacturing sites in earnest and continuing his successful career as a production management expert. What was his secret for having been able to follow such a solid career path? To this question, he cited “passion for work” and “trust relationship with members”.

“I tend to have a lot of passion for work. If there is a delivery deadline and a certain level of quality to be reached, I try hard to achieve 120%, rather than 100%. Since all achievements should be made with the members, a solid trust relationship with them is very important. This is because the members can voluntarily utilize their capabilities to the fullest only when the trust relationship is acting as a basis. I am always grateful to our members who trust each other and collaborate together.”

He advised juniors to “have a wide perspective”. This is also the attitude that Kwak always keeps in mind when working.

“It is very important to take a step further from just doing your own job and see the whole flow. One must be able to work organically by understanding the related work or colleagues’ work. In fact, there is no boundary between jobs at companies with great performance. People who can break down boundaries at any time and work beyond those boundaries, and an organization made up of those people will be able to continue to develop.”

What’s also important as a leader is to listen to the voices of the members by increasing the points for communication. Kwak also emphasizes the importance of communication and tries to communicate with members whenever possible. Last year, however, there were not many opportunities to communicate with the members due to COVID-19. It will be possible only when the situation improves, but he hopes to have some time regularly to meet with members and communicate freely this year.

“One time, a member asked me to talk together when I didn’t have much time, so I just listened to what the member was saying. I couldn’t give any solutions to that concern, but that person thanked me later just for listening, which made me very surprised. It was the moment when I realized that communication is not just about giving answers and that the process of listening, thinking together, and sharing thoughts is important. Now, even if I can’t give an answer, I try to listen to the members’ voices as much as possible.”

The Manufacturing Technology is considered as an organization that is creating social value (SV) most actively in SK hynix. Last year, the organization discovered around 1,000 cases of SV creation and it plans to take efforts more actively to create SV this year.

“The Manufacturing Technology members have strong organizational power, so they move in perfect order once a goal is set, with great teamwork. I think that this kind of organizational culture has highly contributed to the good results last year. This year, we plan to expand the foothold so that more members can actively participate in SV creation. I plan to conduct related training for team leader level members and make efforts to spread awareness among members. The goal of this year is to make it a habit for all members to consider SV in the process of work, rather than to focus on the number of cases for SV creation. I believe if we achieve this goal, good results will naturally follow.

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As he is the first Top TL interviewee this year, the newsroom team asked him for a New Year greeting for the members.

“I wish all members and their families a great year of good health and happiness. I hope that all members will grow and develop together with the company and have a year full of happiness.”

¹ Ratio of the number of good products to the number of finished products
² VWBE: Voluntarily, willingly, brain engagement

The post Head of Manufacturing Technology Noh Jung Kwak: “To Prepare the Future with No.1 Manufacturing Competitiveness” first appeared on SK hynix Newsroom.

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SK hynix’s DRAM business has been evaluated as a driving force that has led the company’s rapid growth in recent years and as a key business representing the company. Although SK hynix’s DRAM business ranks second in sales and global market share, it is fiercely competing for the No.1 position in terms of product quality and technology. The key organization leading this high level of technology is the DRAM Development organization. This organization is in charge of developing core products and various derivative products for each technology state and commercializing them through internal certification and customer certification within a given time.

As the Head of the organization responsible for an important duty, Seon Yong Cha of DRAM Development is walking toward the future step by step with confidence, instead of being overwhelmed.

“We always try hard to be the best, but we are staying in second place in terms of scale in reality. If we secure the ‘best technology’, our overall competitiveness including scale will increase, so we are thinking hard to figure out how we can take the ‘first place in technology’.”

As effort comes with achievements, SK hynix is continuing its growth this year, focusing on high-density memory and HBM2E.

“As its name suggests, high-density memory has high density, which means that it must have both good quality and yield for the high density. SK hynix has secured sufficient competitiveness, as well as an impressive market share. In particular, among DRAM products, the quality of server DRAM is the most important, and SK hynix maintains a high share of the overall server products including high-density memory. (1st place with 40% of market share in the first half of 2020, according to market research institute Omdia)

HBM2E products are also leading the market. Both quality and performance are currently recognized by customers, and we expect to continue this trend in the future. Also, we are giving shape to plans to strengthen the competitiveness of mobile and graphic related products.”

Cha also expressed his anticipation for the automotive business. Although SK hynix’s market share in the automotive semiconductor field is not yet high, he expected that meaningful results can be achieved if the company uses its long-accumulated know-how for memory semiconductor technology.

“In the semiconductor business, competitiveness in the automotive sector is crucial. This is because the quality requirements for products in this sector are very high. The automotive business is expected to upgrade SK hynix’s overall product quality and production system. If this business is well established, it can serve as leverage for the quality of all other DRAM products. In addition, it will open a new path for the DRAM business as a premium product lineup.”

Regarding the business situation in the second half of this year, some forecast that “the company’s performance will be in a bearish trend, as customers’ DRAM inventory is piled up”. On the contrary, others expect that “the performance will improve next year due to shortages in supply”. Also, the recent global business environment which became more volatile suggests that there are more things to consider in business.

“To respond to changes in the business environment, we are working to establish a solid cooperative relationship with our customers. Although many different variables are affecting the business, as the demand for memory semiconductor continues, we will do our best not to miss out a market we can target.”

Semiconductor industry is a typical “cycle industry” where boom and bust repeat. Because the industry is also sensitive to external variables, it is necessary to constantly monitor the global situation and market conditions to respond proactively. One of the important tasks is to reduce the impact of the industry situation and external variables and lay the foundation for operating the business stably. Cha is currently preparing for this as well.

“When considering the nature of the semiconductor industry, securing cost competitiveness means the strength to withstand changes in the external market environment. Recently, a task force (TF) to secure cost competitiveness was formed to establish a plan. We are working on many action plans to secure the competitiveness for No.1.”

“Limits Exist to be Overcome”: Cha as an Analytical Strategist

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As some say that the technology gap within the leading group of the DRAM business has almost disappeared, it is most important for SK hynix to solidify its technological leadership as a company belongs to the leading group. In terms of securing core technology, SK hynix has achieved some great results by introducing the concept of “platform”, starting from 1xnm (first-generation 10 nm-class products). Platform means developing a technological system that can be applied for a long time to many generations, instead of developing a technology that can be applied only to one generation.

“Adopting the platform concept has the advantage of reducing trial and error when developing the next generation of technology that shares the same platform, even though it costs for investment when the initial platform changes. Thanks to this advantage, we were able to successfully and efficiently develop various products from 1xnm (first-generation 10nm-class products) to 1ynm (second-generation 10nm-class products), then to 1znm (third-generation 10nm-class products).”

The next step after securing the core technology is to apply this technology to multiple products of the same generation to secure competitiveness in the performance aspects of each product, such as power, speed, quality, and high density. While this process by SK hynix has not been entirely satisfactory, Cha was confident that it is now changing.

“Since this year, we have subdivided the product performance into eight areas. We have established and are pursuing plans for each area to secure the competitiveness necessary for each area. The technology level for each performance area might be relatively different from each other, but we aim to pursue the highest level of technical competitiveness in all areas within the next few years.”

It is getting more difficult to continue Moore’s Law¹ in the semiconductor industry. There is also a prospect that the limit of the miniaturization of DRAM is approaching in the industry. Nevertheless, Cha expressed his firm determination to overcome the limits with tenacity, rather than preventing the possibility of development due to the “limits”.

“I don’t want to describe it as a ‘limit’. In the past, there were times when people thought 100nm was the limit, and then 20nm was considered to be the limit. Nevertheless, overcoming the limit every time is the process of DRAM development until today. The current difficulties are also barriers to be overcome, which means that we have not reached the limit. I believe that innovative technologies will soon be developed to break through the barrier which is currently considered as a limit.”

The structure of the semiconductor industry is also changing rapidly. While PC manufacturers were the main customers in the past, various types of IT companies such as mobile companies and internet data center operators are newly included in the customer group, diversifying the requirements.

In addition, the recent semiconductor industry is showing a wide range of change, and there is a prospect that a complete change can be made in the future, not only in terms of the environment of competition, but also the competitors themselves. Cha emphasized the necessity of identifying this rapidly changing trend of the semiconductor industry and responding quickly.

“In the past, when new technology was developed, the profits were made by reducing the cost of core products which has a high proportion in sales. Now, however, it is more like making profits through using the premium by securing a wide range of lineups of derivative products that will meet the different needs of customers. In fact, the share of derivative products in DRAM sales has grown significantly compared to several years ago.

In more and more cases, customers are demanding customized memory products, so it is not enough to make a good product according to the defined specifications. The process of planning products that customers need and commercializing them has become more important. It is time to preemptively establish a system to respond to these changes in the market.

In fact, there are risks in the customized memory business. This is because if the commercialization plan falls through during the development process, you will have to bear as much damage as the resource used. Nevertheless, I think we should keep trying. Whatever changes are made to the market, the key is the customer. In the future, the business should proceed in the direction of improving customer value, even if it carries some risks.”

If such change keeps accelerating, it is expected that more driving force will be given to the establishment of a “product-oriented system” that SK hynix is currently focusing on. DRAM Development is also preparing the system in line with this trend.

“The product-oriented system is a concept that started with a question, ‘how will we reflect the customer needs that are becoming more diverse, from the product level to secure competitiveness?’. In the past, when a core technology’s level was raised, you could just use that technology to make most of your products. In recent years, however, the importance of derivative products has increased, so different and a lot of element technologies are now required for each product. Also, it is necessary to prepare the element technologies in advance. For this reason, from this year, we are establishing and following a roadmap that determines the element technologies needed for each product and defines schedules for development and verification.”

The diversification of customers also means that collaboration with customers has become important. Due to the recent COVID-19 outbreak, however, communication with customers is not easy. What kind of efforts is SK hynix making for smooth customer relationship, in this changing environment?

“As customers’ systems become more complex and sophisticated, the process of evaluating and analyzing data at the time when our products were mounted on the customer system, and finding and solving defects in advance is becoming more important. In particular, in the post-COVID-19 era when the ‘contactless’ environment will be generalized, it is also necessary to prepare a customer communication system suitable for this.

To realize this, SK hynix is establishing a system that allows real-time online testing and analysis, without having to dispatch engineers to the field. We will continue to think more about strengthening collaboration with our customers in the future.”

A Warm-hearted Mentor for Members

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Since taking charge of DRAM Development, Cha has been putting a lot of effort into improving the organizational culture. One of the representative cases is that he streamlined the internal certification process after a technology is developed, and this reduced the stress of the employees caused by various issues.

Internal product certification is one of the core tasks of DRAM Development. This is a very important task to keep the delivery schedule promised with customers. It takes over a month for one internal certification process, and if it fails, it needs more time and effort, which means more stress for employees. Cha thought that it is necessary to increase the success rate for certification first to improve work efficiency.

“First, what I suggested as a goal was to significantly increase the success rate of the first certification. To achieve this, I asked Process Integration (PI) to work to dramatically increase the wafer yield in the first test. Also, Product Engineering (PE) worked to reinforce the pre-test quality inspection system. Product Management Office (PMO) responsible for organizing the overall certification, materials, and development process, has been reinforced with stronger authority, so that the entire development process can be managed more thoroughly. Thanks to these efforts, the certification success rate this year has improved significantly.”

In the second half of this year, he focused on creating a new vision for DRAM Development from the perspective of the employees, and shared it with them recently. The new vision is “Experts group who continuously grow through No.1 brand products”. It shows his hope that the members feel proud of making “No.1 brand products”.

“Visions we’ve seen so far were more about the organization. It was a way to set the future orientation of the organization, not members, and to think about how to achieve that goal; however, as it is difficult to identify the organization with the individual members, I thought, ‘Will the members feel thrilled with this kind of vision?’

What I was trying to do this time was to create a vision that makes the members’ hearts beat. I shared the vision with the members, but it hasn’t been completed yet. I’d like to continue to communicate with the members to create a vision that can be shared with everyone.”

Cha enjoys meeting and chatting with the members. He often meets in small groups of four to five people and listens to them. This is because it allows him to understand other members and find various ways to support them. It is not as often as before due to COVID-19, but he plans to increase contact points with the members in the future.

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Lastly, the newsroom team asked Cha to define himself, as one of leaders at SK hynix.

“I want to become a leader who put the head together to get an answer with the members. Rather than being a difficult leader asking for a well-organized report on the solution when a problem arises, I’d like to be a friendly leader who can think of ideas together and solve the problem together.”

¹Moore’s Law: Moore’s law is the observation that the density of microchips doubles every 24 months.

The post “Dreaming of the Best DRAM”, Toward the No.1 in Technology: Head of DRAM Development Seon Yong Cha first appeared on SK hynix Newsroom.

“Control Tower” That Leads Quality Improvement and Problem Resolution

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“Currently, SK hynix’s solution business is approximately at the world’s fourth place in terms of market share, but I think its development competitiveness is showing a rapid increase. As the competitiveness of the solution business has been strengthened thanks to the 128-layer 4D NAND, it is expected that SK hynix will step up to the global top tier level in the solution business in the near future, as well as its NAND business.”

“SK hynix develops and provides products for customers at the global top level in the field of high-performance mobile solutions, such as UFS 3.1² and uMCP 3.1³. It is also rapidly gaining competitiveness in the SSD field, which has been relatively challenging for us. For great performance in the solution business, it is important to secure sufficient product lineups to provide a variety of products according to customers’ demand in a timely manner, rather than focusing on one or two specific products. SK hynix has already established full portfolios that customers want in the mobile and client SSD fields. By next year, SK hynix is expected to have the same level of portfolio lineups as its leading competitors in the enterprise SSD field.”

Ahn also mentioned the nature of the NAND & Solution business nowadays. He is working to enhance the capabilities of Solution Development, especially in the perspective of the “overall optimization.

“The essence of the NAND business is to deliver value to customers, which means to help customers keep their data for a long time at a very low cost, with no compromise in quality. To achieve this, customers’ data should eventually be contained in the form of a solution product, which is a mobile solution such as SSD Solution or UFS. In such products, various components such as a controller⁴, a firmware⁵, and active and passive elements are mounted, as well as a NAND. In this regard, the essence of the NAND & Solution business is overall optimization.”

He also emphasized Solution Development should play the role as a “control tower” for the NAND solution. This control tower should be able to coordinate the whole aspects.

“For solution products, a wide range of aspects should be considered, such as components, aligned technologies, securing product performance and quality that customers want, and price. For this reason, someone has to play the role in coordinating from development to mass production for continuous customer satisfaction. As Solution Development plays a leading role in the entire process from designing various elements such as NANDs, controllers, active/passive elements, PCBs, and modules to customer certification and mass production defect resolution, it should take a role of a “control tower” in the technology aspect.

With regard to this, what I emphasize to the members is the ‘sense of ownership’. When looking for the cause in the case of a fault or performance deterioration, it’s often unclear to determine which organization caused such problem. At such times, members of Solution Development should take the lead in understanding the real cause and solving the problem, rather than focusing on identifying the responsible organization. That way, other organizations will be able to develop flawless solution products with us.”

At the same time, to survive in the fierce market competition, he emphasized the innovation speed faster than competitors.

“Competition is the inevitable fate of a company. In a rapidly changing environment, we can’t outperform our competitors simply by running faster than we did in the past. What’s more important is outpacing them in the relative speed. A correct direction is crucial as well.”

To speed up the innovation, Ahn has re-established organizations of Solution Development. First, the Innovation team was established. The role of the Product Management Office (PMO), which is a control tower organization within Solution Development, has also been strengthened. From this year, PMO has been presenting standards for how each organization should work and leading cooperation based on the sense of ownership.

Also, the Product Engineering (PE) team has been strengthened to improve the verification capabilities. This shows the intention to make a balance between development and verification, whilst development has been the main focus thus far. PE team is reinforcing its role of driving each development organization and preemptively reducing defects to secure a certain level of product completeness, regardless of the internal certification. Along with this, it is contributing to enhancing the technology level in the mass production process by dispatching engineers to collaborative organizations.

Going beyond the Customers’ Expectations: The Right Person for a Big Leap forward to “Customized Solution”

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Ahn believes that the next three to four years will be the most important period in this business. With this belief, he is paying attention to strengthen the basics. Especially, the area he is focusing on the most is securing and fostering human resources with professional capabilities.

“This is the time when customers and product lineups are expanding. In this circumstance, the most important thing to achieve the best performance and quality ahead of competitors is to secure professional competence. To realize this, we are committing ourselves to fostering top-level experts in the fields of System on Chip (SoC), firmware and verification, by expanding the Expert and Architect systems within Solution Development.”

An expert means a person who has a comprehensive knowledge in a particular area. An architect is a person with a high level of technical competence beyond experts, as well as a sufficient understanding not only in one particular area but also in other adjacent fields. It is also a maestro who can determine the direction and goal of development.

To become an architect, expertise in at least three areas is required, as well as a profound understanding of customers. Currently, Solution Development has two architects in the firmware field. Ahn is expecting that new architects in the SoC filed will be produced within this year. Ahn’s goal is to produce at least ten architects in the next three to four years.

“Even though additional architects are newly produced this year, this might not guarantee a significant and immediate contribution to the development. However, within three to four years, the development direction will be decided based on the know-how of these architects. When the development direction becomes clearer and the competencies are put together, the value created from this will be astronomical. We are currently improving systems and expanding related education to secure architects who will play a crucial role.”

“We can’t really say that customers’ evaluation of our products was all great last year. There have also been some instances of persistent problems with some products. In this process, we’ve learned many lessons. Since then, we’ve devoted ourselves to restoring customer trust by establishing policies that prioritize quality and dispatching our engineers to major overseas markets. As a result, as of the end of June this year, quality evaluation of the mobile solutions in the first half of this year by global customers, especially those in China, has recorded the top level in the industry. SSDs are well evaluated by customers as well. To get to this point, Quality & Reliability Assurance (QRA) and Global Sales & Marketing (GSM) have provided a lot of assistance. We’ll continue to work hard to maintain the highest quality in the future.”

Due to the spread of COVID-19 this year, voices of concern are being heard from inside and outside; SK hynix, however, is turning the crisis into an opportunity by supplying products in a timely manner. The Company is also preparing the post-COVID-19 era as well.

“The recent market contraction was caused by the COVID-19 issue, but also by the industry itself. The semiconductor memory industry is cycle-based, repeating a boom and bust cycle. I believe that if we can secure customer trust by developing industry-leading products even in times of recession, we’ll be able to make a bigger leap forward in the upcoming periods of prosperity.

In the meantime, even if the COVID-19 situation is resolved in some way in terms of disease management, the current “contactless” environment is expected to continue in the future. We will focus on grasping the changes in customers and market environment to proactively develop appropriate technologies and products, responding to our market by making preparatory actions with GSM.”

CEO Seok-hee Lee has recently mentioned that the NAND and Solution businesses should play a big role to enhance SK hynix’s market value. In response to this, Ahn presented detailed execution plans.

“There are two ways to enhance market value. One is to expand sales by increasing investment, and the other is to show growth potential to the market. We’re paying attention to the latter. One typical example is Tesla, which achieved the highest market capitalization in the automobile industry despite the relatively modest sales.

We’re currently thinking of three major execution plans. The first is to dramatically increase the growth rate of the business to show the market that we have tremendous growth potential. The second is to let the industry know in various ways that the capabilities of the human resources responsible for the SK hynix’s NAND & Solution business are rapidly growing. The last is to expand our status in the contactless environment. In other words, it is about strengthening technological competitiveness for the future through the ‘select and concentration’ strategy. By implementing these three methods efficiently, we’ll continue to increase market value to achieve our goals.”

The First Penguin who Supports the Personal Growth of Employees

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During his career, Ahn has often moved to different departments. Starting as a process engineer, he went through the Corporate Strategy & Planning and Innovation Task Force (TF), and built his career in the NAND & Solution field. He has been dispatched to SK Telecom, and he was once in charge of establishing artificial intelligence (AI) strategies at the Future Technology & AI. How was he able to achieve great results in all of these different fields? He mentioned “listening and learning” as his strengths.

“The reason why I could be well adapted anywhere was that I listened to the members carefully. Employees at SK hynix put their heart and soul in each position. If you are a leader, what you have to do is to provide an environment where hard-working members can work more efficiently and effectively.

You also need to pay attention to personal growth, and one way to achieve this is giving them a chance to learn. For example, I took a short MBA course when I joined the planning organization after working as an engineer, and I took a ten-week AI training course when I started AI-related work in 2019. Learning things every time I come across a new field is becoming something enjoyable. I think that sharing my experiences with the members and my efforts for assisting their growth aroused sympathy from the members, making it possible for me to reach where I am now.”

He defined himself as a “first penguin”. First penguin means a penguin that stands at the front of a group of penguins as they move between ice floes to check for hazards such as seals and broken ice.

“A leader should take the initiative and set an example. Especially, Solution Development members have a variety of careers and expertise, so only at the expense of more experienced leaders can they win their hearts. In addition, a leader should be meticulous and precise. As the range of work is very wide, there’s no time to check one thing multiple times. That’s also the reason why all members should faithfully play their own role in each area and check until the end to ensure that there are no problems in terms of completeness or quality of development.”

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In particular, Solution Development is a young organization with great diversity. Ahn is spending a lot of time to think of a way to enhance work efficiency by making the most of this organizational characteristic.

“Understanding each other is important. Bringing out 100% of the competencies of the members is up to the leader. What I emphasize to leaders is to spend a lot of time understanding the competencies of their members accurately and figuring out which momentum can bring out the best results.

Also, I try hard to give work to the right person whenever possible. Whatever the work is, if you give the work to the right person, it is resolved perfectly in less time. If the time earned by doing this is used for developing competencies of the members, the overall performance will be steadily and significantly improved.”

¹NAND Solution: A storage product mounted on IT devices such as SSD and UFS for storing data. Equipped with a NAND-based system semiconductor that can process data such as a controller, it features high stability and fast processing speeds.
²UFS: Universal Flash Storage. A next-generation memory card. A NAND flash solution used in mobile devices.
³uMCP: UFS-Based Multi-Chip Package. A semiconductor in the form of a single chip manufactured by combining multiple types of semiconductors based on UFS.
⁴Controller: System semiconductor that processes data by controlling the NAND installed in the Solution
⁵Firmware: A micro program which controls hardware stored in a Read-Only Memory (ROM).

The post Ceaseless Effort of NAND Solution to Boost Corporate Value of SK hynix: Interviewing Hyun Ahn, Head of Solution Development first appeared on SK hynix Newsroom.

Accomplished Designer for SK hynix NAND Business

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In recent years, SK hynix has been putting a lot of efforts into the NAND sector, with rising expectations that there will be great achievements in the near future. Choi is confident that SK hynix will meet such expectations starting this year.

“When the 128-layer 4D NAND technology is applied to major production lines, the status of SK hynix’s NAND business will change. Next-generation NAND technology is also being developed smoothly. Once these goals are achieved, we can surely enter the global top tier level among global NAND suppliers.”

Developing technology for the first time in the world is definitely not a coincidence. Such achievements symbolize that SK hynix’s unique working system has already reached a very high level, and human resources at SK hynix possess a world-class competency.

Choi predicted that SK hynix will rapidly evolve and become one of the top tier global NAND suppliers over the next few years. This was not based on some groundless confidence. SK hynix has already developed the world’s first 128-layer 4D NAND technology, securing a technology advantage differentiated from its competitors.

“SK hynix has demonstrated that its NAND technology prowess reached the highest level in the world by developing the world’s first 128-layer 4D NAND technology. SK hynix is committing itself to strengthen its position as the No.1 in the industry, not in terms of the scale, but in terms of technological power.”

Actually, the industry predicts SK hynix’s NAND business will turn a profit in the early stages, increasing SK hynix’s corporate value eventually.

“The main reason behind the profitability improvement is the increased proportion of the cost-competitve products. This year, the 96-layer products are playing a key role in sales and operating profit, and the transition from 72-layer to 96-layer is rapidly taking place. The yield has already exceeded 90%, and the future is bright as well. We are currently expanding customer certification with the 128-layer 4D NAND. As the proportion of this product increases, the product portfolio will also improve.”

While many indicators were positive, negative issues also occurred due to the spread of COVID-19 at the beginning of this year. The market situation worsened, hindering the development of NAND flash; however, SK hynix has turned the crisis into an “opportunity” by ensuring internal stability while minimizing the effect of COVID-19.

“It is true that some global supply chains were disrupted by COVID-19, but we ramped up the production of 128-layer 4D NANDs by warehousing equipment one step ahead and increasing the operating rate of existing equipment. As a result, we could secure the equipment operating rate of 128-layer products higher than that of the existing products.

We also established a system to prevent accidents at the production line. We are planning to fortify internal stability this year as the 128-layer products are under the preparation stage. Based on these efforts, we expect to supply products in an even more stable way than we have done so far, when the COVID-19 situation calms down.”

“Father of 128-layer 4D NANDs”

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Choi had built his career for a long time working to develop next-generation semiconductor. In 2017, he served as Head of NAND Device Technology Group at R&D. From the following year, as the Head of 128-layer 4D NAND Task Force (TF) , he led the development and presented the title of the “world’s first” to the SK hynix’s NAND business.

Choi was also confident and proud about SK hynix’s unique corporate culture.

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“SK hynix has a strong culture of caring for others, which allows you to look around, rather than just looking infront. Of course, it is important to be the best alone, but when you become the best while caring for others at the same time, the value becomes much greater.”

Based on this philosophy, Choi suggested “Best Quality, First NAND” as the vision of NAND Development organization this year. This vision implies that with great quality secured, SK hynix can become a top tier company in the global NAND market.

Choi also made a careful effort for securing the motivative power to achieve this goal. This year, SK hynix established a product-oriented system for all employees including CEO, and is reorganizing the role, responsibility, and the way of working of each organization in order to guarantee high quality, as well as the overall optimization of the Company. Amid these changes, NAND Development organization was reorganized too.

“Until now, both the internal and external communication have been managed by one organization, which hindered the efficient operation of human resources. To reform this, NAND Application Engineering (AE) Team and Product Engineering (PE) Team were newly established last year. NAND AE Team is responsible for external communication where the team accommodates the needs of customers promptly to provide customized products on time. On the other hand, NAND PE Team is responsible for internal communication which is necessary for a smooth collaboration with Solution Part. We also reinforced our workforce for this newly established double-team reform.”

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At the end of the interview, we asked Choi to express himself as “one of the leaders at SK hynix”.

“As one of the colleagues, I want to support the continuous growth of others. However as a leader, I’d like to be a ‘game-changer’. I’d like to shake the game and continue innovation, transforming the flow of the NAND market where SK hynix leads.”

The post Challenge for Global Top Tier NAND Supplier : Interviewing Jung Dal Choi, Head of NAND Development first appeared on SK hynix Newsroom.