As high-bandwidth memory (HBM) booms and Samsung Electronics and SK hynix continue large-scale hiring, core design talent at domestic fabless companies and design houses is increasingly moving to large corporations. With experienced workers concentrating at memory corporations that have strengthened their competitiveness in salaries and performance bonuses, the industry is voicing concern that "memory corporations are becoming a talent black hole."
According to the semiconductor industry on the 10th, major domestic fabless companies and design houses have recently seen a stream of job changes among 7- to 12-year senior and principal-level design engineers. Multiple industry officials said, "At one major design house, more than a dozen ace-level design engineers moved to Samsung Electronics and SK hynix," and added, "With key personnel who led projects leaving all at once, schedules and workforce operations were disrupted."
Their areas included RTL (register transfer level) design, DFT (design for test), backend design, and ASIC verification. All are roles where proficiency is crucial, making it difficult to replace them quickly with new hires, the industry said.
Other fabless and design house officials reported a similar mood. An industry official said, "Recently, even when we post openings for experienced hires, there aren't many applicants, and not a few of the people we manage to hire leave if they receive offers from large corporations," adding, "Competition to secure mid-career engineers has become far more intense than before."
Aggressive hiring by large corporations is also influencing this trend. SK hynix hired 3,201 new employees domestically last year, 3.4 times more than the previous year (942). While the figure does not refer only to design roles, considering the limited domestic semiconductor talent pool, fabless companies and design houses are said to be feeling significant pressure from talent outflows.
In contrast, SK hynix's voluntary turnover rate was just 0.5% last year. As it actively absorbs external experienced workers while internal outflows remain limited, the talent shortage at small and midsize semiconductor corporations is worsening, analysts said.
The industry also cites the blurring boundary between memory and system semiconductor design as the HBM4 era takes off in earnest as a factor intensifying the competition for talent.
Starting with HBM4, advanced logic processes are being applied to base dies, and demand for customer-customized (custom) HBM is expanding. In response, Samsung Electronics and SK hynix are aggressively increasing hiring of experienced workers not only in traditional memory design but also in system semiconductor capabilities such as RTL, SoC architecture, ASIC, controller/PHY, CXL, and backend verification.
The problem is that such core design talent cannot be trained in a short time. The industry says it takes at least several years for a hands-on engineer to carry out projects independently, so the departure of even a few mid-career workers can lead to tape-out delays or difficulties winning new projects.
A semiconductor industry official said, "Design personnel are not roles that can be replenished in a short period like production jobs," adding, "If experienced engineers with project experience leave, it takes considerable time for successors to fill the gap."
The shortage of domestic semiconductor specialists is already being flagged as a structural issue. The Korea Semiconductor Industry Association projected that the workforce needed by the domestic semiconductor industry will increase to 304,000 by 2031, while the shortfall will reach up to 81,000; among them, the shortage of specialists, including design, will amount to more than 54,000.
The pace of talent supply is also failing to keep up with demand. For the 2027 academic year, the total number of students to be selected for the Samsung Electronics–SK hynix partnered semiconductor contract departments is only about 460. The industry warned that if large corporations continue large-scale hiring, the talent shortage at fabless companies and design houses will deepen and, over the long term, weigh on research and development and order-winning competitiveness across Korea's system semiconductor ecosystem.