Apple chip expert Kim Woo-Pyeong is moving to Samsung

Samsung Electronics recently poached a chip expert who has been working for Apple for many years: Kim Woo-Pyeong has been employed at Apple since 2014 and has a lot of experience in chip technology – before Apple he worked at Texas Instruments and Qualcomm. According to a report by Business Korea, he will now serve at Samsung as director of the newly established Packaging Solution Center, which is part of the Device Solution America division based in San Jose, California. Packaging is becoming more and more important for chip manufacturers: As the limits of what is physically possible are approached with the ever smaller structure widths of the manufacturing processes, packaging technologies are playing an increasingly important role.

According to the report, experts say this type of poaching is rare given the somewhat peculiar relationship between Apple and Samsung, which are arch-competitors in some areas and collaborating in others. However, Kim’s move from Apple to Samsung is not the first event of its kind. In 2012, Samsung tricked Apple from Luc Julia, who had previously helped shape the development of Siri for a year. (ubi)