Lee Kang-wook, SK Hynix Vice President: "Dominating Packaging is Key to Dominating Semiconductors"

Claim in the Keynote Speech at the '2024 Bando Semiconductor Exhibition'
"Packaging Capability Determines Corporate Survival"

Lee Kang-wook, Vice President of SK Hynix (in charge of package development), emphasized on the 24th during his keynote speech titled "The Role of Semiconductor Packaging in the AI Era" at the "2024 Semiconductor Exhibition" that "He who dominates packaging will dominate semiconductors." Packaging is a post-process operation that stacks and binds chips.

The Semiconductor Exhibition was held on the same day at COEX in Gangnam-gu, Seoul. Lee, who took the stage for the keynote speech, said, "In the artificial intelligence (AI) era, demand for ultra-high-performance and ultra-low-power semiconductors is increasing," adding, "The evolution of post-process packaging technology promotes the growth of new businesses. Packaging capabilities determine corporate survival and corporate value."

Kangwook Lee, Vice President of SK Hynix

He continued, "SK Hynix was also able to dominate the market with new packaging technology." He also revealed that the company is preparing to apply 'Advanced MR-MUF' technology and hybrid bonding technology starting from the 6th generation high-bandwidth memory (HBM) product, HBM4.

SK Hynix has distinguished itself in the high-bandwidth memory (HBM) market with its proprietary packaging technology, MR-MUF (Mass Reflow Molded Underfill). Recently, it has introduced an advanced HBM product by applying the 'Advanced MR-MUF' technology, which improves productivity by about three times and heat dissipation performance by about 2.5 times. The 'Advanced MR-MUF' technology is also used in the currently mass-produced HBM3E 12-stack product. Hybrid bonding is a next-generation packaging technology that directly connects chips with copper without bumps (tiny protrusions) between chips. It is effective in terms of performance and thermal efficiency. Based on this, SK Hynix, which is leading the HBM market, also announced that it achieved record-high performance. In the third quarter of this year, it recorded sales of 17.5731 trillion KRW and an operating profit of 7.03 trillion KRW.

AI-related videos are being shown at the SK Hynix booth at the 26th Semiconductor Exhibition SEDEX 2024 held at COEX in Gangnam-gu, Seoul.
[Image source=Yonhap News]

Lee pointed out that the Korean semiconductor industry grew centered on memory integrated device manufacturers (IDMs) that independently handle all processes, resulting in weak linkage with other processes such as design (fabless) and post-process (OSAT). He cited Taiwan as an example, noting that Taiwan developed a balanced semiconductor ecosystem including fabless, foundry, and OSAT, securing a favorable position in the AI era. Lee said, "In Korea, packaging is not well taught in academia, making it difficult to supply appropriate talent, and national integrated research and development (R&D) was also weak," adding, "If we strengthen the integrated R&D ecosystem and advanced packaging technology, Korea will also grow into a comprehensive semiconductor powerhouse."

Regarding the future outlook of the HBM market, Lee said, "I think the market will grow for the time being in connection with AI," explaining, "Because AI-based application technologies are being widely applied across various industries."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.