Samsung Electro-Mechanics has hired Kwang Duan, a semiconductor packaging expert who worked at Intel for over 17 years, as vice president. This move aims to accelerate new businesses, such as glass substrates.
According to the industry on the 3rd, Vice President Kwang Duan will take on the role of overseeing technology marketing and institutional sector engineering at Samsung Electro-Mechanics' U.S. subsidiary located in San Jose, California, starting this month. A Chinese-American, he is a graduate of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and is regarded as a veteran in the semiconductor packaging field. He is considered a pioneer in the glass substrate sector, a next-generation semiconductor packaging technology, and he also received the 'Inventor of the Year' award from Intel last year.
He is expected to be responsible for developing new business related to glass substrates at Samsung Electro-Mechanics, as well as sensing technology trends in the semiconductor packaging and package substrate markets, drafting package technology roadmaps, and transferring research and development (R&D) technical know-how from big tech corporations.
Vice President Kwang Duan also noted in a promotional video released by Intel last year that "the future artificial intelligence (AI) systems will be built on giant form-factor glass substrates."
Glass substrates suitable for high-performance AI chips are a transformation of existing plastic semiconductor package substrates to glass material, which are thinner and have smooth surfaces to minimize circuit distortion. They are particularly gaining attention in the industry for their potential to improve data speeds and power consumption in semiconductor packages.
Samsung Electro-Mechanics is currently operating a pilot line for glass substrates and plans to sample 2 to 3 U.S. big tech companies this year. Mass production is targeted for 2027.